^^  OF  W^'nS^ 


BS  2424.3  .S84 
Stewart,  a.  Morris 
(Alexander  Morris) 
The  temptation  of  Jesus 


THE 


TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

A  STUDY  OF  OUR  LORD'S  TRIAL 
IN  THE  WILDERNESS 


A.   MORRIS   STEWART,   M.A. 

AUTHOR   OF    "the   CROWN   OF    SCIENCE" 


SECOND   EDITION 


FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK.     CHICAGO.    TORONTO 


Published  May  1903 
Reprinted  June  igoj 


PREFACE. 

IN  setting  forth  this  Interpretation  of  our 
Lord's  Temptation  in  the  Wilderness,  the 
writer's  aim  and  method  are  very  simple. 

The  aim  is,  so  to  read  and  use  every  indica- 
tion in  the  Gospel  narratives,  that  the  plain  facts 
of  them  shall  meet  the  reader's  imagination,  and 
be  readily  related  with  his  experience. 

The  Temptation  is  a  great  fact  which,  first 
and  chiefly,  concerns  the  inner  experience  of 
Jesus.  To  understand  it,  both  generally  and  in 
its  details,  is  to  gain  insight  regarding  Him ;  and 
that  is  an  end  in  itself.  But  there  is  no  com- 
munication of  Scripture  regarding  God  or  His 
Son  which  is  not  designed  in  relation  to  our 
needs.  When  we  are  shown  Jesus,  it  is  always 
in  such  an  aspect  as  may  instruct  and  help  us  ; 
and  nowhere  can  this  be  more  true  than  in  the 
Temptation,  where  we  see  Jesus  in  relation  to 
Satan  and  sin  ;    meeting  evil  and  the  Evil  one, 


vi  PREFACE 

on  His  own  behalf  and  ours,  as  the  Saviour  of 
men. 

Each  point  narrated  or  indicated  in  the 
Temptation  story  is  primarily  and  intimately 
related  to  our  Lord  ;  but,  when  it  is  told  in  the 
Gospel,  it  gains,  in  the  telling,  that  extra  meaning 
in  which  it  concerns  us  who  are  admitted  to  the 
understandincj  of  it. 

The  method  of  this  Interpretation  is  nothing 
else  than  the  keeping  in  view  of  this  double 
significance  :  that  of  the  facts,  on  the  one  hand, 
which  concern  our  Lord ;  and  that  of  their 
narration,  on  the  other  hand,  which  sends  them 
on  to  us. 

In  discussing  the  several  Temptations,  the 
order  which  has  been  followed  is  that  of  S. 
Matthew's  Gospel,  in  preference  to  S.  Luke's. 
The  latter  order,  when  it  puts  the  rapture  to  the 
Temple  top  after  the  vision  of  the  kingdoms  of 
the  world,  seems  designed  to  end  on  a  level  which 
shall  be  close  to  the  beoinnino;;s  of  our  Lord's 
ministry.  The  step  from  the  height  of  the 
Temple  buildings  is  seen  by  S.  Luke  as  a 
proposed  emergence  into  publicity.  Jesus  is 
shown  refusing  this  mode  of  entry  upon  His 
ministry  (Luke  iv.  12);  and,  in  the  narrative 
immediately  following,  we  see  Him  choosing  an 


PREFACE  vii 

ordinary  road  towards  His  extraordinary  work  : 
"  returning  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit  into 
Galilee"  (Luke  iv.  14).  This  contrast  of  the 
airy  path  suggested  by  Satan,  and  the  earthly 
walk  chosen  by  Jesus,  is  effective  ;  but  the  order 
of  S.  Matthew  is  plainly  the  logical  order  of  the 
Temptations,  in  which  they  rise  from  the  less  to 
the  greater,  culminating  in  world-wide  vision  on 
Jesus'  part,  and  in  dismissal  on  the  part  of  His 
Tempter. 

Critical  questions  and  purely  theological  dis- 
cussion have  been  avoided  in  the  text.  A  few 
matters  which  fall  under  these  heads,  and  which 
could  not  be  passed  over,  are  treated  of  briefly  in 
notes  which  will  be  found  in  an  Appendix. 

A.  MORRIS  STEWART. 

ARBROATH, 

March,  IQOS' 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FAGE 

The  Measureless  Endowment         .  .  .  i 


CHAPTER  II. 
The  Wilderness         .  .  .  .  .15 

CHAPTER  III. 
The  Forty  Days  and  Forty  Nights  .  .         29 

CHAPTER  IV. 
"If  Thou  be  God's  Son"      .  .       •      .  -53 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Snare  of  Hunger:  i.  As  it  concerned  Jesus        73 

CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Snare  of  Hunger:    2.  As  it  concerns  Us    .         89 

b  ix 


CONTExNTS 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PAGE 

The  Snare  of  the  Fourth  Dimension       .  .       109 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The     Snare     of     the    Fourth     Dimension — con- 
tinued    .  .  .  .  .  .127 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Assault  of  the  King  of  the  World  .       141 

CHAPTER  X. 

The    Temptation    of    Unhallowed    Means    and 

Unholy  Ends      .  .  .  .  '159 

CHAPTER  XI. 
From  Temptation  to  Service  .  .  .177 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Horror  and  Healing  ....       193 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
"Behold  the  Lamb  of  God!"  .  .  .211 


CONTENTS  xi 

APPENDIX. 

PAGE 

Note      I.  The  Number  Forty         .  .            .219 

Note    II.  El  vlb<;  et  rov  Oeov             .  .             .220 

Note  III.  to  irrepiijiov  rov  iepou      .  .             .       224 

Note  IV.  The   Relation    of    Human  Nature   to 

Sin:  especially  in  Jesus  .            .226 


^ASii« 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   MEASURELESS   ENDOWMENT.       -  5^- 


^■^ 


Jesus  Cometh  from  Galilee  to  Jordan  unto  John,  to  be 
baptized  of  him.  But  John  forbade  Him,  saying,  I  have 
need  to  be  baptized  of  Thee,  and  comest  Thou  to  me  ?  And 
Jesus  answering  said  unto  hint.  Suffer  it  to  be  so  now  :  for 
thus  it  becometh  us  to  fulfil  all  righteousness.  Then  he 
stiffered  Him,.  And  Jesus,  when  He  was  baptized,  went  up 
straightway  out  of  the  water:  and,  lo,  the  heavens  were 
opened  unto  Him,  and  he  saw  the  Spirit  of  God  descend- 
ing like  a  dove,  and  lighting  upon  Him  :  and,  lo,  a  voice 
from,  heaveti,  saying.  This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I 
am.  well  pleased. — Matt.  iii.  13-17. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  MEASURELESS  ENDOWMENT 

THAT  which  has  no  mere  beginning  has  many- 
beginnings  ;  and  such  is  the  life  of  Christ. 
"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,"  says  S,  John 
on  the  first  page  of  his  Gospel,  feeling  it  hard  to 
profess  to  begin  the  life  of  Jesus.  We  love  to 
linger  at  the  beginnings  at  Bethlehem.  We  are 
alive  to  the  "  beginning  of  miracles  "  at  Cana  of 
Galilee  ;  and  the  preface  to  the  Acts  makes  of  all 
the  ministry  of  Jesus  one  beginning  of  a  work 
which  heralded  a  splendid  continuance. 

Among  the  beginnings  of  the  perfect  life  a 
chief  one  is  the  Baptism  of  Jesus,  which  separates 
His  private  youth  from  the  short  public  ministry 
of  His  manhood.  In  approaching  the  study  of 
the  Temptation  in  the  Wilderness,  our  way  lies 
by  the  Baptism  at  Jordan.  These  two  cannot 
be  separated  ;  they  are  parts  of  one  whole.  The 
Temptation  is  not  only  related  to  the  Baptism  as 
being  its  immediate  sequel  in  point  of  time,  but 


4  THE  TEMPTATIOxN  OF  JESUS 

also  as  its  necessary  consequence.  The  Baptism 
at  Jordan  was  the  occasion  of  the  Temptation  in 
the  Wilderness.  The  Temptation  was,  in  a  sense, 
the  completion  of  the  Baptism,  in  which  the  Spirit 
of  God  descended  upon  Jesus  and  was  given  to 
Him  in  a  measureless  communication.  It  was 
because  of  the  unique  mission  which  was  sealed 
in  His  Baptism  that  Jesus  was  led  into  His 
singular  trial  in  the  Wilderness.  It  was  because 
of  His  measureless  equipment  for  the  unexampled 
task  of  men's  salvation  that  the  Tempter  sought 
Him  in  the  desert  and  waged  war  upon  His 
sinlessness. 

At  this  central  point  in  our  Lord's  life  we 
naturally  look  backward  in  it,  with  an  endeavour 
to  understand  what  had  been  His  past  relation 
to  sin. 

Jesus  had  lived  through  childhood  and  youth 
a  pure,  perfect  life  in  His  village  home.  He 
knew  what  sin  was  from  God's  word  of  record, 
law,  and  prophecy  ;  and  He  saw  its  baneful  effects 
all  around  Him.  Jesus  knew  what  sin  was,  far 
better  than  any  other  man  did  ;  for  He  viewed 
it  with  sinless  eyes,  undimmed  by  the  unholy 
darkness  that  obscures  the  sight  of  every  other 
man.     He  felt  it,  too,  with  the  keen  sensitiveness 


THE  MEASURELESS  ENDOWMENT  5 

of  response  and  recoil  which  could  belong  only 
to  perfect  purity.  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart,"  for  they  see  God.  Blessed  also  are  they 
because  they  see  sin,  undeceived  by  inclination  or 
any  glamour,  and  hate  and  turn  away  from  it. 
Only  those  who  fully  see  God  with  pure  gaze 
can  truly  know  evil,  and,  detecting  its  nature 
beneath  disguise,  can  escape  the  snare  of  its 
guile. 

But  we  are  not  told  the  story  of  that  early 
life.  Only  once  is  the  veil  lifted,  when  the  child, 
now  grown  into  a  lad  of  twelve  years,  was  taken 
to  Jerusalem.  And  this  short  glimpse  shows 
us  already  a  clear  consciousness  of  moral  and 
spiritual  relations.  The  boy  who  went  straight 
to  the  Rabbis  in  the  Temple  and  questioned  their 
astonished  pedantry,  must  early  have  faced  the 
facts  and  problems  of  evil;  and  His  life  must 
have  been  full  of  everyday  opportunities  for 
sinning,  very  much  as  ours  is ;  only,  they  were 
so   differently  met. 

The  coming  of  Jesus  to  the  Baptism  of  John 
is  full  of  meaning.  He  was  a  man  apart ;  and 
He  knew  it.  Hitherto  He  had  lived  apart ;  not 
in  the  desert,  as  John  had  done,  but  in  a  far 
more  real  separation  from  the  world.     But  now 


6  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

He  makes  a  move  towards  His  fellow-men,  and 
seeks  a  new  relation  with  them.  This  motion 
of  Jesus  towards  men  was  fraught  with  conse- 
quences ;  the  Temptation  in  the  Wilderness  was 
among  the  first  of  these  ;  but  His  whole  ministry 
arose  from  that  walk  in  which  He  came  from 
Galilee  to  Jordan,  unto  John,  to  be  baptized  of 
kim.  In  this,  indeed.  He  began  His  ministr)'. 
The  coming  of  Jesus  to  Jordan  marks  the  attitude 
of  desirousness  on  His  part  to  join  Himself  to 
the  affairs  and  life  of  men.  John's  Baptism  of 
repentance  is  a  movement  for  righteousness  which 
makes  the  point  of  contact  that  He  seeks.  Are 
men  seeking  righteousness  }  Then  so,  too,  does 
He  in  every  moment  of  His  life,  with  every 
impulse  of  His  heart  ;  and  He  will  join  them  in 
their  quest.  Will  men  draw  near  to  God  ?  This 
is  the  constant  motive  of  His  life;  He  will  go 
with  them  to  aid  their  progress  with  His  presence 
and  the  impulse  of  His  pure  desire. 

In  this  emergence  to  consciousness  and  purpose 
of  the  impulse  to  go  with  men  and  for  them  in 
the  quest  of  righteousness  we  may  find  the  call 
of  Jesus  to  His  mission  of  salvation  for  the 
world.  It  was  not  enough  that  He  should  live 
among  men,  "  holy,  harmless,  and  undefiled ; " 
the  pulse  of  the  world   must  beat  in   His  heart  ; 


THE  MEASURELESS  ENDOWMENT  7 

the  affairs  of  men  and  their  Godward  aspirations 
and  endeavours  must  be  His  own  if  He  would 
help  them.  Till  this  was  accomplished,  the 
relation  of  Jesus  with  His  kinsmen  of  Israel 
was  not  complete.  His  Baptism  at  Jordan  was 
the  beginning  of  the  road  which  led  to  Calvary. 
And  the  beginning  was  already  a  shadow  of  that 
end;  in  it  Jesus  did  for  Israel  some  part  of  that 
fulfilment  of  all  righteousness  which  on  the  Cross 
He  finished  for  Israel  and  all  the  world. 

The  lesson  of  this  for  us  is,  that  isolation  is 
not  the  way  to  work  and  usefulness  ;  to  the 
attainment  of  influence  upon  men.  Isolation  has 
its  use  as  a  preparative,  in  our  experience  as 
in  that  of  Jesus.  But  if  it  be  like  the  separation 
of  His  long  youth,  it  will,  like  His,  be  fruitful 
of  the  impulse  towards  a  relation  with  others  in 
which  we  may  help  them.  When  we  see  the 
Son  of  God  go  to  seek  the  Baptism  of  John, 
we  learn  that  it  is  not  the  will  of  God  that 
His  children  should  stand  apart  from  the 
movements  of  the  world  ;  but  rather  that  after 
His  example  they  should  take  part,  even  in 
imperfect  endeavours  like  that  Baptism  ;  and, 
taking  part,  should  raise  them  to  a  new 
significance  and  efficacy.  Only  one  Man 
received   the    Baptism    of  John    with   a   perfect 


8  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

zeal  and  resolve  for  righteousness ;  and  that 
was  the  man  Jesus.  The  shallowness  of  the 
penitence  around  Him  did  not  deter  Him  from 
that  step  which  proved  to  be  the  first  step  of 
His  manhood  in  the  way  of  men's  salvation. 
It  was  when  He  went  to  Jordan  that  Jesus  first 
took  up  His  Cross,  and  we  learn  how  heavily 
it  bore  upon  Him  from  the  very  first,  when  we 
see  Him  tempted  in  the  Wilderness. 

We  know  that  crowds  came  to  John  to  be 
baptized  ;  but  crowds  have  tides  that  flow  and 
ebb.  We  are  sure  that  the  Reformer  had  quiet 
hours  in  which  he  was  left  alone  in  the  familiar 
solitude  of  many  years  ;  and  we  doubt  not  that 
it  was  in  such  a  quiet  hour  that  Jesus  came 
to  him.  There  is  a  disengaged  accent  about  the 
dialogue  between  them  which  tells  us  thus  much,^ 
and  the  witness  to  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  ^  is 
evidently  given  by  one  who  saw  it  alone  in 
the  wide  privacy  appropriate  to  a  great  sign 
specially  addressed  to  himself.  We  may  there- 
fore picture  the  meeting  of  the  Forerunner  and 
his  Master  in  the  early  morning  before  others 
had  awakened  to  a  new  day.  Perhaps  it  was 
a    Sabbath    on    which    the    vigilant   ascetic    was 

1  Matt.  iii.  14,  15.  ■•^  John  i.  32-34. 


THE  MEASURELESS  ENDOWMENT  9 

waiting  by  the  river,  and  Jesus  came.  The 
purity  of  His  presence  brought  an  added  hush 
to  the  stillness  of  the  scene  ;  for  there  is  awe 
in  the  voice  of  John  when  he  bids  Jesus  back 
from  His  Baptism,  saying,  /  have  need  to  be 
baptized  of  Thee,  and  contest   Thou  to  me  f 

Jesus  came,  and  John  looked  on  Him  and 
saw  Him  as  He  was,  unstained  by  sin  and 
unmarked  by  conflict.  His  aspect  was  such  as 
suited  the  things  that  were  at  this  time  behind 
Him  in  His  life :  the  simple  but  thoughtful 
childhood,  the  active  though  secluded  time  of 
youth,  in  which  He  "increased  in  wisdom  and 
stature,  and  in  favour  with  God  and  man."^ 
Above  all  there  was  that  subtle  somewhat  that 
marked  Him  as  "holy,  harmless,  undefiled, 
separate  from  sinners."^  When  John  looked  on 
Jesus  as  He  came,  he  did  not  see  this  character 
and  aspect  for  the  first  time.  When  he  says, 
Contest  Thou  to  nie  ?  we  judge  that  they  had 
met  before,  and  that  it  was  a  well-known  and 
well-loved  countenance  that  the  Baptist  looked 
upon.  When  we  remember  the  intimacy  that 
was  between  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus  and 
Elizabeth,  John's  mother,  who  were  cousins- 
german,^    we    are    sure    that    John    and    Jesus 

^  Luke  ii.  52.  ^  Y{€o.  vii.  26.  "  Luke  i.  36,  39. 


10  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

early  knew  each  other  by  report,  and  had  each 
some  knowledge  of  the  other's  destiny.  John 
"  was  in  the  deserts  till  the  time  of  his  shewing 
unto  Israel ;  "  ^  we  cannot  doubt  that  Jesus  sought 
him  there  and  communed  with  him.  Together 
they  had  learned  of  God's  truth  from  His  word 
and  by  His  Spirit's  teaching. 

The  Baptist  knew  what  manner  of  man  He 
was  whom  he  greeted  with  that  forbidding 
question :  Contest  Thou  ?  Yet  he  afterwards 
definitely  disclaimed  foreknowledge  of  Jesus  as 
the  Christ.  "  I  knew  Him  not,"  he  says  ;  and 
again:  "I  knew  Him  not."^  He  cherished  the 
promise  of  a  sign  of  the  Messiah  which  as  yet 
had  not  been  given  ;  yet  he  testified  beforehand 
in  that  greeting:  Contest  Thou?  that  Jesus  was 
different  from  the  rest  of  those  who  sought 
his  Baptism,  so  that  it  seemed  a  profanation 
that  his  unworthy  hands  should  minister  the 
rite  to  Him.  We  are  sure  that  John  suspected 
the  truth  regarding  Jesus ;  but  one  meaning 
of  his  disclaimer  of  all  knowledge  beforehand 
is,  that  he  did  not  trust  his  own  intuition  or 
judgment,  or  base  his  testimony  on  his  own 
opinion.  When  he  "  bare  record,"  it  was  on 
the  authority  of  God's  own  witness  to   His  Son. 

'  Luke  i.  So.  "  John  i.  31,  H- 


THE  MEASURELESS  ENDOWMENT         1 1 

So  Jesus  came  to  be  baptized,  and  gently 
turned  back  the  instinctive  reluctance  of  the 
Baptist,  that  He  might  "  fulfil  all  righteousness."^ 
And  Jesus,  when  He  zvas  baptized,  went  tip 
straightway  out  of  the  waterr  The  significance 
of  this  has  been  variously  conjectured,  but 
without  satisfaction.  We  take  it  to  mean  that, 
as  the  rite  was  completed,  Jesus  left  the  Baptist 
with  a  marked  haste.  This  Man  waited  for  no 
word  of  absolution  or  exhortation  such  as  others 
sought  from  him.  He  looked  upwards  as  one 
who  saw  someone  greeting  Him.  He  went 
towards  the  river-shore  with  the  steady  gaze 
and  purposeful  step  of  one  who  answered  a 
beckoning.  John,  awestruck,  felt  that  Jesus  was 
summoned  from  his  side  by  a  Presence  which, 
though  unseen  by  him,  was  recognised  by  Jesus. 
The  Baptist  noted  the  rapt  expression  of  His 
countenance,  which  S.  Luke  interprets  as  com- 
munion with  God,  "prayer;"^  and  as  he 
watched  the  footsteps  that  seemed  to  go  with 
a  glad  haste,  and  as  he  lifted  his  eyes  in  the 
direction  of  Jesus'  gaze  :  Lo,  the  heavens  were 
opened  unto  Him,  and  he  saw  the  Spirit  of  God 
descendiftg,  in   a   bodily   shape, '^  like  a  dove,  and 

^  Matt.  iii.  15.  -  Matt.  iii.  16. 

^  Luke  iii.  21,  *  Luke  iii.  22. 


12  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

lighting  upon  Him :  and  lo,  a  voice  from  heaven, 
saying,  "  This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased^  ^ 

It  was  the  eye  of  Jesus  that  first  and  fully  saw 
the  Presence  and  greeting  that  came  to  meet 
Him  ;  so  that  He  left  the  Baptist  in  the  waters 
of  Jordan,  as  it  were,  with  eager  hurry  to  meet  a 
visitant.  We  may  judge  that  the  vision  of  Jesus 
was  not  shared  by  John.  His  eye  and  ear  ap- 
prehended the  approach  of  God's  Spirit  directly  : 
His  heart  understood  without  mediating  symbols. 
What  John  saw  was  an  interpretative  sign,  and 
what  he  heard  was  an  explanatory  voice ;  and 
by  means  of  these  he  was  enabled  to  share  the 
significance  of  the  salutation  which  came  to  Jesus 
alone.^  The  voice  which  spoke  to  Jesus  a  full 
announcement  and  assurance  of  His  sonship^ 
gave  to  John  the  message  of  his  witnessing,*  in 
which  he  "  bare  record  that  this  is  the  Son  of 
God."^ 

The  "  bodily  shape  like  a  dove  "  is  familiarly 
and    rightly  apprehended    as  a   symbolical    sign. 

^  Matt.  iii.  i6,  17. 

2  Cf.  John  xii.  30,  "This  voice  came  not  because  of  Me,  but  for 
your  sakes." 

•''  Luke  iii.  22,  "Thou  art  My  beloved  Son." 
^  Matt.  iii.  17,  "This  is  My  beloved  Son." 
^  John  i.  34. 


THE  MEASURELESS  ENDOWMENT  13 

Its  meaning  regarded  the  character  and  mission 
of  Jesus,  which  were  purity  and  peace ;  and  its 
meaning  was  addressed  to  John  in  order  that  he 
might  witness  to  Messiah,  and  that  with  a  new 
understanding  of  His  Spirit.  He  had  used  the 
language  of  strong  denunciation  to  Israel ;  he 
had  spoken  of  Messiah  as  coming  with  a  "fan 
in  His  hand"  to  make  a  sifting  wind,  and  as 
ready  to  judge,  and  "burn  up  the  chaff  with  un- 
quenchable fire."^  John  had  been  a  prophetic 
flail,  beating  Israel  upon  the  threshing-floor  of 
repentance ;  and  now  there  was  shown  to  him 
the  Sonship  of  the  lowly  Jesus  ;  and  the  quality 
that  was  sealed  on  Him  from  Heaven  was  gentle 
holiness.  When  we  hear  the  Baptist  tell,  "  I 
knew  Him  not,"  perhaps  we  hear  his  accusation 
of  himself,  in  which  he  confesses  that  he  ought  to 
have  known  beforehand  the  whole  truth  about 
Jesus;  but  his  own  hard  spirit  had  been  slow  to 
believe  all  that  his  heart  had  told  him  of  Him 
who  was  "harmless  and  undefiled." 

The  Spirit  of  purity  and  peace  descended  thus 
upon  Jesus;  but  His  coming  was  not  only  upon 
Jesus,  but  also  into  the  world  and  for  all  men. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  both  of  these  aspects  of 
the  descent,   as  we  go   on  to  the  study  of  the 

^  Matt.  iii.  12. 


14  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Temptation  which  followed  it.  His  Baptism  was 
a  part  of  the  fulfilling  of  all  righteousness  by 
Jesus  ;  it  was  also  an  act  of  repentance  on  behalf 
of  Israel  and  the  world  beyond.  So,  also,  the 
descent  of  the  Spirit  was  for  the  cleansing  of  the 
world  by  God ;  in  it  there  was  loosed  upon  earth 
the  flood  of  those  waters  of  Heaven  which  are 
spirit  and  fire. 


CHAPTER    II. 
THE    WILDERNESS. 


Then  was  Jesus  led  tip  of  the  Spirit  into  the  imldermess 
to  he  tempted  of  the  Devil. — Matt.  iv.  i. 

And  He  "was  with  the  wild  beasts. — Mark  i.  13. 


16 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  WILDERNESS. 

IT  is  a  fact  which  has  been  proved  in  the 
experience  of  many  men,  that  the  way  to 
which  God's  Spirit  beckons  Hes  often  past  the 
mouth  of  Hell,  which  gapes  in  solitary  places. 
Thus  it  was  with  Jesus.  He  "was  led  up  of  the 
Spirit  into  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the 
Devil." 

If  we  rightly  interpret  the  silence  of  the 
Gospels  regarding  His  youth,  and  if  we  read 
aright  His  aspect  as  John  saw  Him  come  to 
Jordan,  the  life  of  our  Lord  now  passed  was  a  time 
of  growth  and  waiting,  in  which  He  had  been 
aloof  from  afiairs  and  "separate  from  sinners"  in 
an  external  sense  as  well  as  inwardly.  But  now 
there  had  risen  up  within  Him  a  new  impulse, 
which  He  expressed  to  John  as  a  resolve  to 
"fulfil  all  righteousness."  This  purpose  of  Jesus 
was  met  by  the  Father  in  the  descent  of  the 
Spirit,   which   brought    Him   a   measureless   en- 


1 8  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

dowment.^  Now  He  was  rapt  from  John's  side, 
wearing  the  intense,  abstracted  look  of  one  who 
answered  a  a^reetinor  and  went  to  meet  an  unseen 
Presence ;  and  without  pause  His  steps  were 
directed  away  from  the  haunts  of  men  and 
towards  the  Wilderness.  In  the  vivid  language 
of  S.  Mark  :  Straightway  the  Spirit  drive th  Hh>i 
forth}  This  gives  the  more  true  psychology  of 
the  movement  towards  the  Wilderness ;  for  we 
are  told  that  the  Spirit  descended  upon  Him,  and 
remained  on  Him.^  It  was  not  an  outward 
constraint  that  led  Him  away:  the  impulse  of 
the  Spirit  was  now  within  Him,  and  possessed 
and  ruled  Him  with  an  inward  grasp  to  which 
He  yielded  gladly. 

The  obvious  note  of  this  experience  of  Jesus 
is  the  note  of  isolation.  He  was  led,  even  driven 
apart.  His  inward  separateness,  which  He 
always  had,  was  not  enough  :  that  was  a  moral 
separation  from  the  elements  of  imperfection  and 
evil  which  were  around  Him  ;  this  was  a  separa- 
tion in  order  to  a  definite  exercise  of  spirit  and 
ordeal  of  character.  His  accustomed  apartness 
was  consistent  with  many  links  of  human  kinship 
and  sympathy,  with  much  intercourse  of  common 
interest   and    kindness.       He    who    brought    the 

'  John  iii.  34.  ^  Mark  i.  12.  '  John  i.  n. 


THE  WILDERNESS  19 

message   of  the    Father's   love   could   never   be 
alone  as  a  Man  among  men. 

John  had  sought  the  Wilderness  from  his  youth 
in  order  to  the  imperfect  attainment  of  what  Jesus 
had  in  perfection,  even  while  He  mingled  freely 
with  His  fellows.     It  was   a   different   necessity 
which  drove  Jesus  into  solitude,  from  that  which 
denied  the  social  life  to  His  Forerunner.     It  was 
not  that  He  had  need  to  keep  His  hands  clean 
from  the  sordid  soiling  of  gain,  or  His  lips  from 
words  that  might  be  hasty  and  unkind  or  false  or 
any  way  injurious  ;  nor  that  His  heart  needed  to 
be  retired  from  the  reach  of  stains   that   might 
sully  it,  nor  that  His  feet  must  be  removed  from 
paths  where  waywardness  might  stray  into   the 
snares   of  common   life.     Nor    was  it    that   the 
severities  of  nature's  wildness  might  ennoble  His 
spirit  and  strengthen  His  will  for  lofty  purposes. 
These  were  the  ends  that  were  sought  by  John, 
as   they  had    been    sought    by    many  who   were 
lesser  than  he  among  the  prophets.     But  it  was 
different   with    Jesus.     He    was    driven    to    the 
Wilderness  for  the  enacting  of  a  drama  which  no 
eye  might  see   save  Heaven's.     The  theatre   of 
this  Temptation  must  be  solitude.     This  is  the 
explanation  of  the  rigid  solitude  into  which  Jesus 
was  driven  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 


30  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

While  remoteness  is  the  keynote  of  each  of 
the  Gospel  notices  of  the  Temptation,  the  locality 
to  which  Jesus  "was  led  up"  is  not  precisely 
indicated.  Tradition  points  to  the  desert  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Jericho,  and  calls  it  Quarantania, 
the  place  of  the  forty  days.  A  symmetrical,  and 
perhaps  also  a  sentimental,  suggestion  is  that  the 
scene  of  our  Lord's  trial  is  to  be  found  in  the 
wilderness  of  Sinai,  where  Israel  received  the  Law. 
But  we  must  be  content  without  determining  the 
exact  place.  "  The  desert  "  is  meant  to  designate 
a  solitary,  wild  place;  a  "howling  wilderness." 
And  S.  Mark,  in  his  short  notice,  finds  room  to 
say :  He  was  with  the  wild  beasts. 

When  Jesus  went  into  the  Wilderness,  He  left 
John  behind  Him  ;  but  He  did  not  merely  turn 
His  back  on  the  Baptist  and  Jordan.  It  is  more 
remarkable,  that  when  He  was  led  away  by  the 
impulse  of  the  Spirit's  fresh-descended  power,  it 
was  not  to  the  midst  of  the  crowds  who  had 
thronged  to  John  ;  not  to  the  streets  or  Temple 
of  the  Holy  City,  not  yet  to  the  populous  districts 
of  Galilee.  The  solitary  wildness  of  the  desert 
place  stands  in  contrast  with  all  these.  The  Fore- 
runner had  already  published  far  and  wide  the 
news  of  the  approaching  kingdom  of  God  ;  his 
voice  had  stirred  the  whole  land  with  its  message 


THE  WILDERNESS  21 

of  condemnation  of  the  past  and  of  hope  for  the 
near  future.  But  the  time  for  our  Lord's  open 
commencement  of  His  public  work  was  not  yet 
quite  come.  His  preparation  was  not  completely 
finished. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  Jesus  did  not  go  forward 
to  His  ministry  straight  from  the  Baptism  of  John 
and  amid  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Baptist's  follow- 
ing. He  was  borne  into  His  work  on  no  wave 
of  popular  excitement,  but  came  straight  from 
solitary  conflict  with  evil  and  a  lonely  communing 
to  which  He  was  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  This 
marks  that  His  work  was  directly  heaven-born, 
and  not  the  mere  outcome  of  what  preceded  it. 
It  drew  its  inspiration  from  the  source  that  moved 
the  Baptist,  but  did  not  borrow  from  the  Fore- 
runner.    The  source  was  with  Jesus. 

The  Temptation  with  the  preceding  Baptism 
creates  a  gulf  in  our  Lord's  life  and  experience, 
by  which  His  ministry  is  cut  off  from  what  went 
before  it,  and  the  depth  of  that  gulf  is  as  deep 
as  the  heart  of  God,  out  of  which  came  salvation 
for  men. 

We  readily  see  that  the  isolation  and  tempt- 
ation of  Jesus  on  the  eve  of  His  ministry  was  a 
leading   of  God,  which   is  full  of  a  significance 


22  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

peculiar  to  His  own  personality  and  special 
mission.  But  also  it  is  typical  of  human  experi- 
ence. 

In  the  life  of  each  man  who  fully  comes  to 
manhood  there  is  a  line  which  marks  off  his  youth 
from  his  maturity.  Others  may  not  see  it  drawn, 
for  this  commonly  happens  in  the  wilderness. 
This  is  the  emergence  into  clear  light,  of  in- 
dividual responsibility  and  settled  purpose  ;  and 
often  the  demarcation,  though  unnoticed  on  the 
surface,  is  a  deep  score  on  the  living  heart  be- 
neath. Perhaps,  also,  it  is  the  case  that  all  those 
whom  God  leads  to  special  work  and  usefulness 
have  their  wilderness  into  which  they  are  led,  and 
in  which  they  are  taken  apart  from  other  men  in 
order  to  be  alone  with  God  and  the  Devil.  There 
they  are  called  upon  to  choose  between  right  and 
wrong  ;  also  to  settle  what  is  right  for  them,  and 
what  is  not  allowable  in  their  case  whatever  it 
may  be  for  others. 

In  every  life  there  is  a  season,  the  season  of 
youth,  in  which  temptation  is  a  specially  important 
element.  Temptation  may  not  be  lightly  sought ; 
for  we  are  taught  to  pray  that  our  path  may  be 
averted  from  it.  But  its  experience  comes  to  all 
men  ;  and  when  we  come  into  it,  we  may  not 
merely  wish  it  gone  or  hurry  past  the  season  of 


THE  WILDERNESS  23 

its  trial.  The  hardness  and  soreness  of  temptation 
are  not  its  chief  features  ;  the  great  thing  about  it 
is  its  use.  The  momentous  character  of  tempt- 
ation lies  less  in  its  being  an  opportunity  for 
evil,  than  in  that  aspect  in  which  it  is  an  oppor- 
tunity for  good.  It  is  an  occasion  for  victory,  an 
opportunity  for  being  strong  in  God  and  growing 
stronger. 

The  fear  of  everyone  regarding  temptation 
ought  to  be,  lest,  having  come  to  us,  it  should 
go  from  us  without  having  been  turned  to  use  in 
this  way.  In  the  process  of  our  life  we  may 
outgrow  certain  outward  circumstances  or  inward 
conditions  which  have  been  instrumental  in  our 
temptation.  To  outgrow  a  temptation  before 
we  have  overcome  its  power  is  an  opportunity 
lost;  and  the  loss  is  an  irreparable  one.  In  the 
progress  of  our  life  we  may  pass  from  moral  straits 
and  stress  to  ease  ;  but  there  is  no  spiritual  hope 
in  this,  unless  the  quiet  we  have  gained  is  the  peace 
of  our  victory  over  temptation.  If  we  are  over- 
come, or  if  we  make  a  compromise  with  evil,  then 
our  quietude  is  a  moral  lethargy  that  presages  the 
sleep  of  spiritual  death. 

The  sojourn  in  the  Wilderness  was  the  pre- 
lude to  the  work  of  Jesus  in  the  great  enterprise 
of  man's    salvation.       Every    enterprise    has    its 


24  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

wilderness.  The  long  pilgrimage  of  Israel  in 
the  desert  pictures  what  is  a  general  feature  of 
all  the  large  movements  which  make  for  human 
progress.  They  may  have  their  birth  amid 
crowds  ;  but  whether  they  begin  in  the  heart  of 
one  man  or  in  the  hearts  of  many  men,  they  grow 
in  isolation  and  ripen  quietly  and  unseen  before 
they  bear  fruit  in  the  busy  places  of  men's  active 
lives. 

As  (Treat  movements  in  human  affairs  have 
each  their  wilderness,  so  every  individual  life 
that  is  truly  great  has  its  times  which  are  filled 
with  what  seem  mere  delays  and  hindrances,  and 
which  are  really  preparations.  We  mark  this  in 
the  wanderings  of  Abraham,  the  long  tuition  of 
Jacob  before  he  became  Israel ;  in  the  captivity 
of  Joseph  in  Egypt,  and  the  exile  of  Moses,  as 
in  the  persecuted  youth  of  David.  These  are 
ancient  examples ;  but  the  experience  which 
they  represent  is  never  old.  The  lesson  of 
the  Wilderness  is  written  broadly  over  sacred 
history,  and  it  is  deeply  marked  in  modern  life 
as  well.      ■ 

The'^'Tsolation  and  strain  and  conflict  of  the 
preliminary  trial  may  vary  with  the  magnitude  of 
the  man  and  of  the  mission  which  is  before  him. 
The  unmatched  nature  of  Jesus  approached  His 


THE  WILDERNESS  25 

unexampled  mission  through  the  unique  ex- 
perience of  the  forty  days  and  nights.  The 
commission  to  our  humble  tasks  may  not  send  us 
far  apart  from  our  neighbours  ;  yet  when  it  comes 
we  are  separated  and  driven  aside  to  conflict  and 
delay.  If  it  be  some  experience  of  truth  and 
righteousness  which  is  given  a  man,  to  go  and 
use  and  share  with  other  men,  often  he  is  driven 
into  the  wilderness  of  doubt  and  distrust,  till  the 
truth  that  came  to  him  unsought  and  without 
effort  has  seemed  lost  to  him.  Then  he  has 
searched  and  groped  and  striven  for  it,  so  that 
it  has  become  his  own  as  it  never  could  have 
been,  save  for  his  temptation  in  the  wilder- 
ness. 

If  it  be  some  special  work  which  is  laid  upon 
a  man  to  do,  the  task  may  seem  easy  while  he 
merely  knows  that  it  ought  to  be  done  by  some- 
one ;  but  when  the  call  and  commission  come  to 
himself,  when  he  knows  that  it  not  only  ought 
to  be  done,  but  must  be  done  and  that  by  him, 
— then,  not  uncommonly,  he  is  driven  into  the 
wilderness  of  seeming  impossibility  and  left  alone 
with  his  own  incompetence,  there  to  be  mocked 
on  the  one  hand  by  what  might  be,  and  on  the 
other  by  what  he  himself  is. 

When  a  man  has  seen  a  vision  of  a  pattern 


26  THE  TEMFl^ATION  OF  JESUS 

"shewed  in  the  mount," ^  and  when  the  command 
has  come,  "  See  that  thou  make  all  things  like 
unto  the  pattern,"  then  he  is  very  near  to  the 
wilderness  of  discrepancies.  The  discrepancy 
between  the  revelation  of  Heaven  and  the 
materials  of  earth  is  well-nigh  maddening ;  and 
a  man  may  be  distracted  to  the  verge  of  despair 
by  the  discrepancy  between  the  design  of  vision 
and  his  own  poor  workmanship.  It  is  in  the 
wilderness  that  these  discrepancies  are  felt ;  only 
in  painful  solitude  can  they  be  harmonised.  In 
the  retirement  of  a  deep  experience  every  man 
must  for  himself  resolve  the  recurring  discord 
between  faith  and  fact,  between  the  perfection  of 
his  vision  and  the  poverty  of  the  attainment  which 
is  meanwhile  possible.  In  the  wilderness  a  man 
finds  the  word  of  God  in  his  mouth,  and  the 
skill  of  God  in  his  hand  ;  and  the  worship  of  God 
is  seen  to  be  one  in  heaven  and  earth.  In  the 
wilderness  the  groping  fingers  of  the  mind  catch 
the  threads  of  method.  Or,  it  may  be,  but  one 
thread  of  a  fabric  of  God's  will  is  let  down  from 
heaven  ;  and  from  the  desert  of  his  difficulty  the 
man  takes  the  solitary  clue  of  his  first  duty  and 
comes  back  to  do  the  first  act  of  a  long  course  of 
service,  in  which,  thread  after  thread,  and  deed 

'  Ex.  XXV.  40. 


THE  WILDERNESS  27 

after  deed,  are  woven  into  a  new  robe  of  God's 
will  for  men  and  His  righteousness  among 
them. 

This  is  what  we  do  in  our  small,  poor 
measure ;  and  this  is  what  Jesus  in  the  desert 
did  on  the  grand  scale  of  His  Divine  humanity. 


CHAPTER   III. 
THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS. 


Jesus  being  full  of  the  Holy  Ghosl,  returned  frvm  Jordan , 
and  was  led  by  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness,  being  forty 
days  tempted  of  the  Devil.  And  in  those  days  He  did  eat 
nothing. — Luke  iv.  1,2. 

And  when  He  had  fasted  forty  days  and  forty  nights.. 
He  was  aftcnvard  an  hungered. — Matt.  iv.  2. 


30 


CHAPTER    III. 
THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS. 

FROM  S.  Matthew's  account  we  might  have 
supposed  that  the  Temptation  of  Jesus  was 
preceded  by  forty  days  of  fasting/  after  which  the 
Tempter  came  to  Him  for  the  first  time.  But 
from  both  S.  Mark  and  S.  Luke  we  know  that 
this  was  not  the  case,  but  that  He  was  tempted 
during  the  whole  period  of  His  fast.  These 
six  long  weeks  were  the  time  of  the  Temptation. 
Round  them  are  the  curtain  of  darkness  and 
the  separation  of  silence.  We  are  not  told  one 
word  of  the  spiritual  struggle  that  then  took 
place ;  for  Jesus  has  told  us  nothing.  While 
this  is  so,  let  us  realise  the  fact  that  for  six 
weeks  He  was  exposed  to  the  terrors  of  the 
howling  Wilderness,  and  there  met  and  fought 
with  and  vanquished  a  prolonged  and  definite 
onslaught  of  the  utmost  streno^th  of  the  Evil  one. 
It  was  a  tremendous  spiritual  conflict,  in  which  the 

^  See  Appendix,  I.  p.  2ig  :  The  number  forty. 


32  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Spirit  of  God,  in  the  guise  and  with  the  nature  of 
a  man,  stooped  to  contend  in  mighty  personal 
struggle  with  the  Evil  one.  It  is  a  wondrous 
thouorht :  the  soul  that  was  agitated  was  the 
heart  of  God.  This  is  the  greatest  of  all 
mysteries  :  God  tempted  in  the  flesh. 

It  is  not  on  a  little  inland  lake  that  we  can  see 
the  full  force  of  the  tempest's  fury  ;  it  has  not 
scope  to  gather  strength  there.  The  waves  of 
the  shallow  mere  are  no  more  than  surface 
ripples  ;  there  is  no  depth  of  agitation.  Great  men 
sometimes  know  a  large  measure  of  soul-tempest ; 
for  there  are  breadths  and  depths  in  them  not 
found  in  ordinary  hearts.  But  the  agitation  of 
most  men  is  a  very  trifling  thing.  Our  hearts 
are  like  to  shallow  little  pools ;  their  smallness 
secures  them  from  great  storm-tossed  turbulence. 
It  is  on  the  wide  ocean  with  its  vast  expanse  of 
restless  heaped  -  up  waters  that  the  storm  can 
rush  with  the  sweeping  violence  of  potent  rage. 
And  this  figure  may  help  us  to  realise  that  the 
intensity  of  conflict  experienced  by  our  Lord  was 
no  ordinary  thing,  for  in  Him  there  were  ocean- 
like expanses  and  depths.  And  these  were  all 
roused  and  tossed  by  the  Tempter's  strong 
assaults. 

The   source  of   the  Temptation    is   explicitly 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  33 

stated  :  Jesus  was  tempted  of  the  Devil.  This  has 
given  much  offence  to  those  who  have  wished  to 
explain  away  Satan  ;  but,  though  safely  abolished 
from  their  systems  of  thought,  he  is  persistent 
all  through  the  Bible ;  and  we  shall  do  well 
humbly  to  recognise  his  presence  in  our  Lord's 
experience,  and  also  to  accept  the  fact  of  his 
agency  in  our  own. 

Inquirers  into  the  exact  manner  of  the  Tempt- 
ation have  come  to  various  conclusions.  Some 
questions  that  have  been  raised  have  naturally 
been  directed  to  the  form  or  way  in  which  the 
Tempter  came  :  whether  his  suggestions  were 
inwardly  presented  to  Jesus,  or  spoken  by  an 
outwardly  visible  presence.  Ingenuity  has  fur- 
nished many  guises  to  the  Tempter  ;  but  without 
deciding,  at  this  stage,  whether  Satan  was  visible 
or  invisible  at  one  time  or  another,  we  may  learn 
from  the  narrative  simply  taken,  that  he  was 
present  personally,  and  that  he  dealt  with  our 
Lord  without  intermediate  agency.  The  Devil 
was  allowed  an  opportunity  in  which  to  exert 
his  fearful  strength  to  try  the  Son  of  God.  The 
powers  of  evil  defied  God  in  that  wilderness  of 
trial. 

In  the  Temptation  of  Jesus  we  witness,  on  the 
one  side,  an  exercise  of  Jesus'  Spirit,  in  which, 
3 


34  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

with  the  new  consciousness  which  was  heaven- 
born  at  His  Baptism,  He  faced  the  problems  and 
trials  of  His  mission  of  salvation  for  mankind. 
On  the  other  side  we  witness  an  attempt  of  Hell 
to  blast  redemption  ere  it  burst  from  the  bud  of 
preparation  to  the  flower  of  unfolding  completion, 
rich  with  the  seed  of  everlasting  life.  These  two 
aspects  must  always  be  before  us  in  considering 
the  recorded  temptations  in  detail ;  but  the  one 
which  chiefly  concerns  us  is  that  in  which  we  see, 
not  Satan  face  to  face  with  human  salvation,  but 
Jesus  face  to  face  with  evil. 

We  do  not  need  to  know  precisely  how  evil 
appealed  to  our  Lord's  consciousness.  We  can- 
not know  it,  even  as  we  cannot  know  how  evil 
first  found  a  place  in  the  good  creation  of  God. 
But  we  have  intimations  of  a  mysterious  process 
in  the  inner  life  of  our  Lord, — of  a  perfecting 
through  temptation  and  sufl*ering.  We  may 
witness  in  the  life  of  Jesus  a  progressive  permea- 
tion of  His  human  nature  by  the  Divine,  through 
constant  suppression  of  human  desire  by  spiritual 
impulse.  In  accordance  with  this  is  the  fact  that 
the  circumstances  of  the  Wilderness  Temptation 
indicate  that  its  purpose  was  private  to  our 
Lord's  self.     It  was  not  meant  to  be  a  spectacle 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  35 

to  admiring  faith.  It  was  removed  from  obser- 
vation and  transacted  in  all  possible  sacred 
solitude. 

One  great  fact  includes  the  whole  of  our 
Lord's  relation  to  temptation  :  in  Him  evil  was 
met  by  sinlessness  which  remained  sinless.  He 
Himself  has  told  us  this;  and  in  the  Gospels 
we  have  a  picture  of  His  character  and  a  record 
of  His  deeds  and  words  which  show  His  perfect- 
ness.  Yet,  while  we  know  these  things,  we  feel 
that  the  Temptation  of  Jesus  presents  us  with 
a  great  problem.^  When  we  question  about  the 
possibility  and  character  of  sinless  temptation,  we 
may  not  allow  any  suspicion  that  it  was  an  unreal 
thing.  It  was  part  of  the  work  of  Christ  to  meet 
with  sin  and  overcome  it ;  and  if  that  work  was 
not  one  of  strong  endeavour  and  painful  accom- 
plishment, then  His  life  was  not  a  meritorious 
one.  It  is  rendered  utterly  mechanical  unless  we 
recognise  in  Him  a  true  and  human  free  will ;  a 
power  of  choice  capable  of  weighing  right  and 
wrong,  and  deciding  between  their  alternatives. 

It  is  a  difficult  and  supremely  delicate  ques- 
tion :  whether  the  relation  of  Jesus  to  sin  should 
be  described  as  one  of  Possibility  of  not  sinning, 

^  See  Appendix,  IV.  p.  226  :   The  Relation  of  Huvian  Nature  to 
Sin  :  especially  in  Jesus. 


36  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

or  as  Impossibility  of  sinning:  the  posse  non 
peccare  and  non  posse  peccare  of  the  Schoolmen. 
The  point  is  one  that  opens  up  a  tempting  field 
to  a  kind  of  subtlety  which  rarely,  if  ever,  is  a 
means  of  spiritual  profit.  In  a  sense,  both  of 
these  qualities  belong  to  Jesus ;  but  they  are  His 
in  different  ways.  The  former,  ability  not  to 
sin,  was  a  practical  or  active  quality,  and  was 
constantly  exercised.  The  latter,  impossibility 
of  sinning,  has  something  of  the  nature  of  a 
metaphysical  basis  :  it  is  there  as  the  meta- 
physical background  of  His  life  and  work.  We 
know  it  to  be  there  when  we  feel  that  we  dare 
not  contemplate  the  abortion  of  God's  redeeming 
work,  even  as  we  dare  not  conceive  God's  throne 
abdicated,  and  His  universal  reign  subverted  by 
anarchy. 

Perhaps  Christ's  impossibility  of  sinning  and 
its  relation  to  temptation  may  be  compared  to 
the  decrees  of  God  in  His  predestinations  con- 
cerning all  men,  and  the  relation  of  these 
counsels  to  the  work  of  grace  in  men  and  their 
moral  growth.  Would  we  solve  the  problems 
that  surround  our  Lord's  holy  will  .'*  Let  us  first 
solve  those  that  beset  all  human  will  in  its  won- 
drous freedom  under  God.  We  do  not  doubt 
the  stability  of  God's  purposes,  but  we  do  not 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  37 

regard  them  as  interfering  with  the  moral  sig- 
nificance of  human  action  ;  and  we  are  not 
called  upon,  nor  are  we  able,  to  trace  the  mode 
of  their  relation  to  occurrences,  the  manner  of 
their  translation  into  history. 

In  the  common  experience  of  ordinary  men, 
conflict  between  the  absolutely  good  and  the 
utterly  evil  may  be  comparatively  rare.  The 
usual  occasion  of  temptation  in  all  men  is  rather 
some  question  of  moral  expediency  or  permissi- 
bility. The  clash  of  moral  opposites  is  a  crude 
phase  of  the  heart's  life,  which  ought  to  be  early 
passed  in  all  of  us ;  but  the  balancing  of  things 
which  are  in  themselves  indifferent,  the  arrange- 
ment of  them  in  order  to  the  attainment  of  moral 
ends, — this  is  the  delicate  task  which  is  as  long 
as  human  life.  So  far  from  the  end  justifying 
the  means,  the  greater  and  more  perfect  the 
end  sought,  the  higher  is  the  necessity  that  none 
but  stainless  means  be  used  to  compass  its  at- 
tainment. Often  in  our  small  lives  doubt  and 
difficulty  arise  in  this  connection  ;  and,  arguing 
from  the  little  to  the  great,  we  can  realise  that 
our  Lord,  on  the  eve  of  His  ministry,  had  to 
face  many  a  problem  immense  in  scope  and 
importance,  and  of  exquisite  delicacy.     A  world 


38  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

of  sinful  men  was  before  Him  ;  all  the  future 
age  of  the  world  was  in  His  hand.  Closely 
environed  by  the  material,  He  must  achieve  a 
purely  spiritual  aim.  As  His  Father's  relation 
to  Him  was  vital,  He  must  establish  a  vital 
relation  between  Himself  and  men.  The  inward 
pressure  of  the  Spirit  and  the  outward  pressure 
of  the  great  world's  need  combined  to  drive  Jesus 
away  to  solitude,  that  He  might  think  and  plan 
and  debate  within  Himself.  It  was  in  this  state 
and  situation  of  Jesus  that  Satan  found  his 
opportunity  for  sinister  suggestion  and  subtle 
snare.  He  went  to  commune  with  Himself  and 
God ;  and  He  met  temptation  instead  of  en- 
couragement ;  conflict  and  exhaustion  instead  of 
strenorthenincr  solace. 

We  gain  a  certain  light  upon  the  way  in  which 
Jesus  dealt  with  the  Tempter  in  these  forty  days 
from  the  way  in  which  He  met  the  three  recorded 
Temptations.  Two  of  these  are  plainly  given  as 
examples  of  subtlety  on  the  part  of  Satan  ;  but 
in  each  of  these  cases,  as  in  His  third  answer,  we 
see  Jesus  simply  referring  the  matter  to  the  word 
and  will  of  God.  He,  as  it  were,  unburdens 
Himself  of  independent  responsibility.  There 
is  no  trace  of  argument  in  any  of  His  answers. 
We  are  not  feasted  with  a  combat  of  wits  when 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  39 

we  see  the  Wisdom  of  God  meet  the  world's 
keen  wisdom.  Each  of  Satan's  tempting  words 
has  an  if  in  it,  and  in  no  case  is  that  if 
answered. 

The  only  match  for  perfect  subtlety  is  perfect 
simplicity ;  and  this  was  what  Jesus  displayed. 
Not  only  in  the  brief  space  of  the  recorded 
Temptations,  but  all  through  the  forty  days  and 
nights,  it  was  with  the  perfect  simplicity  of 
dependence  upon  God  that  He  unravelled  the 
toils  of  the  Tempter;  and  with  the  same 
simplicity  His  perfect  loyalty  to  God  turned 
back  the  assaults  of  defiant  wickedness. 

Yet  we  know  that  in  these  curtained  days  and 
nights,  which  were  alike  dark  with  the  presence 
of  evil,  the  harrow  of  temptation  entered 
mysteriously  and  deeply  into  the  heart  of  the 
Sinless  One.  When  we  wonder  how  this 
experience  could  approach  the  pure  soul  of 
Jesus,  we  must  remember  that  His  life  and  death 
were  alike  unique  in  their  character  and  meaning  ; 
even  His  human  nature  may  have  needed  the 
discipline  of  severe  effort  in  rising  to  their  task, 
f  Even  for  the  Sinless  One,  the  way  to  enlarge- 
ment, deepening,  and  enrichment  of  experience 
and  character  was  through  temptation.  Also, 
the  way  to  enlargement  of  activity  and  influence 


40  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

was  by  the  same  hard  road.  The  access  of  God 
to  the  human  nature  of  Jesus  was  enlarged  by 
every  urgent  moment  in  which  His  heart  recoiled 
from  wrong  and  chose  the  good. 

When  we  read  that  "He  was  in  all  points 
tempted  like  as  we  are,"  the  disparity  between 
the  person  and  character  of  Jesus  and  our  own 
is  apt  to  obscure  the  essential  similarity  between 
His  trial  and  ours.  The  likeness  is  to  be  found 
less  in  a  correspondence  of  detail  in  His  case 
with  detail  in  our  experience.  It  was  more  in 
the  general  moral  conditions  which  were  around 
Him,  and  in  those  particular  conditions  which 
were  internal  to  Him  in  His  submission.  In 
several  essential  points  we  may  trace  the  likeness 
of  temptation  in  Jesus  and  in  ourselves. 

First :  In  the  conditions  in  which  He  stood. 
We  may  sum  these  up  in  one  word  :  contiguity 
with  evil.  Elsewhere  we  see  a  great  gulf  fixed 
between  the  abodes  of  evil  and  of  good.  There  is 
a  throne  of  God,  which  is  unapproachable  by  sin. 
But  the  Son  of  God  in  His  Temptation  shares 
the  human  condition  of  contiguity  with  evil.  In 
the  world  He  meets  the  Prince  of  the  world. 
He  might  have  stood  apart ;  but  He  came  not 
only  to  bear  the  "contradiction  of  sinners,"  but 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  41 

also    to    meet   the    contradiction   of  sin,   and  to 
answer  the  challenge  of  its  sovereignty. 

Second :  In  the  moral  and  spiritual  principles, 
whose  character  is  unchanging  and  whose  applica- 
tion was  not  varied  when  He  met  them. 

Jesus  was  born  and  lived  and  fought  and 
worked  and  died  ''under  the  law."  He  came  to 
manifest  "  the  righteousness  of  God  without  the 
law";^  but,  while  that  righteousness  was  in  Him 
and  for  others,  it  was  not  made  by  Him  the  wide 
basis  of  a  singular  prerogative.  He  took.  He 
used  no  privilege  of  royalty,  but  was  morally 
and  spiritually  the  humble  subject  of  God. 
Submitting  to  His  will  in  its  transcendent  large- 
ness, He  also  accepted  those  restraints  and 
limitations  which  are  upon  men  as  men ;  and 
on  Him  they  became  the  mundane  fetters  of 
Divinity. 

The  likeness  between  the  Temptation  of 
Jesus  and  ours  is  seen — 

Third:  In  the  effects  which  flowed  from  His 
strong  conflict. 

He,  having  the  human  nature,  and  sharing 
the  general  and  particular  conditions  of  human 
life  and  conflict,  the  effects  of  temptation  within 

^  Rom.  iii.  21,    X'^P''  means  without  in  the  sense  outside  of, 
apart  from. 


42  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Him  were  like  the  effects  in  us.     Yet,  when  He 
withstood  evil  and  did  not  swerve  from  righteous- 
ness, what  we  see  in  Him  is  unlike  what  we  find 
in  ourselves,  as  perfectness  is  unlike  imperfection. 
We  may  suspect  that  Satan  holds  the   keys 
of  human  nature.     As  men  in  the  body  we  are 
in  the  world  and  of  nature  ;  and  he  is  the  god  of 
this  world,  and  Prince  of  its  power.     We  may  see 
him  come  to  Jesus  bringing  the  keys  of  His  human 
nature.    He  touched  each  secret  spring, and  opened 
each  inmost  door.      But  he  controlled  no  spring, 
he  entered  no  door.     The  purpose  and  choice  of 
good  in  Jesus  drove  him  back.     Each  unsealed 
spring  yielded  to  God  and  was  grasped  by   His 
hand.     The  opened,  inward  door  was  open  only 
for  His  approach  and  entry.     So  as   Satan  un- 
locked secret  after  secret  and  door  after  door  of 
Jesus'  nature,  He  did  but  receive  more  and  more 
of  God's  power  and  was  more  and  more  filled  by 
His  Spirit. 

In  this  process  the  afflatus  received  at  Jordan 
was  applied  to  the  tempted  Jesus.  It  had  rested 
on  His  head  as  the  symbol  of  beauteous  purity ; 
now  it  became  in  a  new  way  intimate  to  every 
channel  of  His  consciousness  and  thought,  and  to 
every  fibre  that  might  thrill  to  emotion  or  stir 
with  energy  to  will  and  do.     Thus  the  god  of 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  43 

this  world  and  Prince  over  nature  unlocked  the 
heart  of  Jesus  but  could  not  enter  in.  His  power 
of  the  keys  of  men's  hearts  did  but  minister  to 
sinlessness  the  occasion  of  enlargement  in  holi- 
ness ;  and  each  of  his  attempts  to  ensnare  or 
corrupt  made  a  new  inrush  into  Jesus  of  the 
endowment  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  was 
given  "not  by  measure  to  Him." 

This  is  how  temptation  ought  to  minister 
growth  in  grace  and  increase  in  holiness  in  all 
men,  even  as  it  wrought  these  in  Jesus.  The 
effects  of  temptation  within  our  Lord  were  like 
the  effects  of  temptation  overcome  in  us,  only 
perfect. 

Fourth:  There  were  results  beyond  Himself 
that  flowed  from  His  Temptation,  in  respect  of 
which  also  it  is  like  ours. 

All  moral  processes  have  always  results  be- 
yond the  one  who  is  immediately  exercised  by 
them  ;  and  as  we  best  understand  the  effects  of 
temptation  which  are  inward  to  the  tempted  one, 
when  we  realise  the  personalness  of  moral  conflict, 
so  we  may  best  understand  those  results  of  it 
which  are  beyond  the  tempted  one  when  we 
realise  the  personality  of  the  Tempter. 

Behind  our  moral  conflict  we  may  always  see 
the   purposes   of  God,    though   these   are   often 


44  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

meanwhile  thwarted.  In  the  conflict  and  victory 
of  Jesus  we  see  this  great  result  :  the  purposes  of 
God  achieved.  The  defeat  of  Satan  and  the  con- 
quest of  evil,  these  are  the  purposes  of  God  which 
are  behind  all  moral  conflict ;  and  these  are  the 
results  which  in  the  Temptation  of  Jesus  we  see 
attained.  This  is  the  siornificance  and  effect  of 
the  Temptation  of  Jesus  in  its  results  beyond  His 
own  person  :  a  battle  has  been  waged  in  the 
world,  by  evil  against  good  ;  and  the  good  has 
perfectly  prevailed.  This  battle  is  one  incident 
in  an  ancient,  long  war.  But  it  is  an  unexampled 
incident,  and  destined  to  remain  pre  -  eminent. 
The  strength  of  God  has  now  turned  the  tide  of 
battle  :  for  the  first  time,  the  King  of  this  world  is 
defeated  on  his  own  ground  and  within  his  own 
realm  ;  and  that  by  a  man.  By  this  his  sover- 
eignty over  men  is  broken  ;  and  in  this  is  foreseen 
the  downfall  of  the  reign  of  unrighteousness  in  the 
earth,  for  Jesus  in  the  Wilderness  laid  the  founda- 
tion stone  of  a  new  throne  of  God  in  all  the 
world. 

The  three  recorded  Temptations  may  be  taken 
as  typical  of  what  is  not  told,  and  we  may  believe 
that  the  record  of  them  is  given  because  they  are 
such  as  are  easily  grasped  by  our  understanding. 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  45 

In  presence  of  the  whole  Temptation  which  is  thus 
indicated  we  may  learn  something  about  the 
relation  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  to  His  miracle 
powers.  His  Temptation  was  a  transaction 
between  Him  and  Satan ;  His  victory  was  a 
transaction  between  Him  and  God.  Under 
shock  upon  shock,  He  held  to  the  strength  of 
God ;  He  stood  and  withstood.  In  snare  after 
snare,  He  cherished  the  wisdom  of  God  and 
escaped.  Against  assault  upon  assault,  He  was 
loyal  to  Heaven  and  prevailed.  His  separation 
from  evil  was  confirmed  in  each  refusal  to 
entertain  its  suggestions.  But  more :  the  re- 
lation of  His  manhood  to  God  was  not  only  con- 
firmed but  drawn  closer.  With  each  entrance 
of  the  will  of  God,  the  Power  of  God  became 
more  fully  His. 

When  He  said,  "■Man  shall  not  live  by  bi^ead 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out 
of  the  mouth  of  God,'  He  grasped  the  secret 
of  life ;  and  in  that  hour  He  gained  that 
control  of  life  and  life's  processes  which  He 
afterwards  exhibited  in  many  a  miracle  of 
healing. 

When  He  said,  "//  is  written,  Thou  shall 
not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God,''  He  showed 
the  perfect  temper   and   spirit  which  God  could 


46  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

trust  with  ascendency  over  nature.  In  Him  who 
would  not  take  that  false  step  from  the  Temple 
ledge  we  see  the  Man  whose  hand  made  the  meal 
of  one  lad  serve  for  thousands  of  men,  whose 
word  once  turned  water  into  wine,  and  again 
blasted  a  luxuriant  fig  tree,  and  yet  again  calmed 
the  violence  of  a  storm  with  one  command.  The 
Man  who  refused  to  tread  upon  air  is  He  whose 
feet  afterwards  trod  the  waters  of  the  lake  as  if 
they  had  been  dry  land.  Because  He  eschewed 
magic  and  all  thaumaturgic  display,  nature  was 
subject  to  Him.  In  His  youth  He  had  lived,  like 
other  men,  within  the  boundaries  of  nature  and 
subject  to  those  laws  which  are  the  indirect 
restraints  of  God ;  now  He  was  promoted  to 
ascendency  over  them,  and,  with  the  sanction  of 
His  Father,  passed  beyond  their  bounds.  The 
continued  loyalty  of  Jesus  to  the  rule  which  He 
saw  in  the  Wilderness  and  chose  to  obey  was 
afterwards  shown  in  this :  that  never  till  His 
humiliation  was  finished  in  death  did  He  use  His 
power  over  nature  for  His  own  service  or 
convenience.  He  was  hungry  and  thirsty  and 
tired  by  the  way,  and  in  peril  from  His  enemies  ; 
but  always  He  stayed  within  the  bounds  of 
ordinary  nature,  and  always  refused  to  save  Him- 
self.    By  this  submission,   He  entered  into  and 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  47 

maintained  that  sovereignty  over  nature  which 
was  the  seal  of  His  sinlessness  and  the  token  of 
His  perfect  manhood.  In  the  Wilderness  He  was 
tempted  to  prove  with  impious  rashness  that 
which  in  the  years  of  His  ministry  He  proved  in 
long  toil ;  and  the  powers  which  he  would  not 
abuse  in  Himself  He  constantly  had,  and  used  in 
the  service  of  others. 

When  Jesus  said,  ''It  is  written,  Thou  shalt 
worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  Him  only  shalt 
thou  serve,''  He  led  Humanity.  His  refusal 
was  for  Himself  first ;  but,  in  the  end,  for 
all  men.  In  this  hour  of  triumphant  loyalty  He 
founded  that  kingdom  in  which  He  was  the  first 
perfect  human  subject  of  God,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  King  over  men.  There  was  gained  in  this 
hour  His  sway  over  men's  hearts,  to  turn  them  to  ' 
God — that  perfect  attraction  which  is  destined  to 
draw  all  men  to  Him. 

We  must  not  suppose  that  the  end  of  the 
Wilderness  Temptation  was  the  end  of  all  such 
experience  for  our  Lord.  S.  Luke  guards  against 
this  error,  saying,  "  When  the  Devil  had  ended  all 
the  temptation,  he  departed  from  Him  for  a 
season"  ^    While  we  know  the  truth  about  this,  we 

^  Luke  iv.  13. 


48  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

are  apt  to  think  about  the  life  of  Jesus  as  if  it 
were  not  so.  The  prominence  which  we  give  to 
the  three  Temptations  in  the  Wilderness,  calling 
them,  after  S.  Luke,  the  Temptation,  is  apt  to 
hinder  us  from  apprehending  their  true  propor- 
tion, both  in  relation  to  the  forty  days  preceding 
and  in  relation  to  the  succeeding  years. 

In  Gethsemane  we  get  a  closer  view  of  the 
tempted  Jesus  than  any  glimpse  afforded  in  the 
Wilderness.  Once,  also,  He  heard  the  voice  of 
Satan  in  the  words  of  S.  Peter,  and  answered  the 
Tempter  rather  than  the  apostle.^  He  rebuked 
the  same  spirit  of  evil  in  James  and  John,^  saying, 
"  Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of." 
Another  and  a  most  affecting  notice  of  the  per- 
sistence of  the  Tempter  is  found  in  S.  Luke's 
account  of  the  night  in  which  He  was  betrayed. 
There  we  read  that,  in  one  of  the  last  greetings 
of  the  Master  to  His  devoted  and  bewildered 
followers.  He  embraced  them  with  loving  gratitude, 
in  the  words  :  Ye  are  they  which  have  continued 
with  Me  in  My  temptations^  It  was  thus  that  He 
saw  His  ministry  as  it  drew  fast  to  its  tragic  close  : 
it  had  been  temptation  after  temptation.  And  as 
He  hung  on  the  Cross  in  the  darkness,  the  Tempter 
still  spoke.     Through  the  rulers  and  the  soldiers 

^  Matt.  xvi.  21-23.  -  Luke  ix.  55.  ^  Luke  xxii.  28. 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  49 

and  the  railing  thief,  he  urged  the  insistent  tempt- 
ing suggestions  of  doubt  and  of  possible  escape  : 
"  Let  Him  save  Himself,  if  He  be  Christ,  the 
chosen  of  God."  "  If  Thou  be  the  King  of  the 
Jews,  save  Thyself."  "  If  Thou  be  Christ,  save 
Thyself  and  us." 

The  Wilderness  Temptation  of  Jesus  was  the 
most  private  of  all  His  Temptations,  and  has  for 
us  the  fascination  of  great  mystery.  We  may  not 
pry  into  its  secrets,  but  we  ought  to  understand 
its  meaning.  While  evidently  its  purpose  was  in 
a  special  sense  personal  to  our  Lord,  the  mere 
fact  of  it  has  a  great  significance  for  us.  We  may 
see  in  it  an  epitome  of  His  whole  redeeming  work 
for  men. 

In  the  wealth  of  His  measureless  endowment 
with  the  Spirit  of  God  He  suffered  Himself  to  be 
led  into  the  place  of  trial  for  our  sake.  He  en- 
dured a  great  banishment,  wherein  His  heavenly 
light  was  veiled.  Hell  strove  to  eclipse  His 
brightness  with  its  lurid  glare,  and  to  pervert  His 
truth  and  thwart  His  love.  And  Hell  was  abashed 
in  defeat  while  He  came  forth  in  calm  victory. 
This  is  the  story  of  Jesus'  Temptation  in  the 
Wilderness  ;  also  it  is  the  history  of  redemption  in 
the  world.  For  the  song  of  salvation  in  all  the 
ages  is  one  long  music  with  a  recurring,  frequent 
4 


50  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

refrain.  And  always  In  that  refrain  the  final  note 
is  victory. 

The  Temptation  of  Jesus  was  a  victory  of  God, 
for  us  and  with  us,  in  a  battle  He  waged  with 
Satan  and  sin.  He  fought  for  us  that  we  might 
be  delivered  by  His  strength.  He  fought  with 
us,  as  one  of  us,  that  we  might  share  His  conquest, 
and  with  Him  receive  the  spoils  of  victory  and 
enjoy  the  peace  of  God. 

This  Temptation  in  the  Wilderness  is  but  one 
wild  stanza  in  the  great  song  of  Jesus'  life  and 
death  on  earth.  In  that  larger  song  the  last  note, 
again,  is  victory  in  His  rising,  in  which  He  broke 
the  power  of  death.  And  that  life  and  death  and 
rising  are  not  yet  the  whole  of  salvation's  song  as 
it  shall  be  sung  hereafter  in  eternity.  Its  music 
is  but  a  part  of  the  hymn  of  history,  whose  pulses 
throbbed  during  ages  of  loving  promise  and 
patient  preparation. 

And  still  that  long  measure  is  unfinished.  In 
its  larger  scope,  the  Temptation  of  Jesus  is  not 
ended.  The  Spirit  which  drove  Him  into  the 
Wilderness  came  again  with  a  baptism  for  all  the 
Church ;  and  it  has  driven  Jesus  and  His  Church 
into  the  world's  wide  wilderness,  there  to  be 
tempted  of  Satan  and  tried.  And  the  strength 
of  God  that  overcame  the  Devil  long  since  is  still 


THE  FORTY  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  51 

with  Jesus  and  His  own.  He  who  once  con- 
quered evil  for  us  and  with  us,  in  the  end  shall 
have  a  larger  victory  with  us  and  in  us. 

Let  us  know,  then,  when  we  suffer  sore  con- 
flict with  sin,  that  this  is  the  battle  of  Jesus  waged 
over  again  and  continued  in  us.  Let  us  not 
wonder  at  our  trial,  nor  doubt  its  end.  Let  us 
not  shrink  from  its  pain ;  for  this  is  God's  fight 
for  kingship  over  evil,  and  He  honours  us  to  bear 
His  name  and  His  armour  and  to  defend  His 
cause. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
"IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON." 


53 


When  He  had  fasted  forty  days  and  forty  nights,  He  ivas 
afterward  an  hungered.  And  when  the  Tempter  came  to 
Him,  he  said,  If  Thou  be  God's  Son  .  .  . — Matt.  iv.  2,  3. 

Being  forty  days  tempted  of  the  Devil,  in  those  days  He 
did  eat  nothijig :  and  when  they  were  ended.  He  afterward 
hungered.  And  the  Devil  said  unto  Him,  If  Thou  be  God's 
Son  .  .  . — Luke  iv.  2,  3. 


54 


CHAPTER  IV. 
"  IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON." 

THE  complete  silence  of  the  Gospels  regard- 
ing all  that  passed  in  the  forty  days  and 
forty  nights  is  fitted  to  enhance  our  reverent 
sense  of  the  greatness  of  what  is  veiled  from  our 
observation.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that 
there  was  then  a  great  contest  between  Jesus 
and  Satan — a  contest  whose  character  and  peculiar 
conditions  are  not  explained  to  us.  In  the  narra- 
tive which  we  have,  only  the  outer  edge  of  the 
curtain  that  has  been  drawn  round  the  Tempt- 
ation is  lifted,  and  we  are  allowed  to  visit  its 
closing  scenes.  The  silence  concerning  the  rest 
is  specially  significant,  because  it  is  the  silence  of 
Jesus  Himself.  He  has  kept  His  counsel,  because 
it  is  not  for  us  to  share  these  mysteries. 

When  we  see  this,  we  realise  also  that  what 
we  are  told  must  have  come  from  His  own  lips. 
No  fellow  of  the  human  race  intruded  on  that 
sacred   solitude  and  told  what  he  had  heard  or 


56  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

witnessed  there.  It  was  the  Master  who,  when 
He  had  gathered  His  Httle  band  of  faithful  hearts, 
told  them  one  day:  "I  was  in  the  Wilderness, 
driven  thither  by  the  Spirit's  fresh-descended 
power ;  and  I  was  among  the  wild  beasts  of  the 
desert  place,  being  forty  days  tempted  of  the 
Devil.  And  in  those  days  I  did  eat  nothing." 
When  we  think  of  the  story  thus  told,  it  gains 
a  great  meaning  for  us.  Do  we  wonder  at  the 
smallness  of  our  information  ?  Do  we  wonder  at 
the  greatness  of  what  is  left  untold  ?  Nay !  it 
may  well  be  that  we  could  not  know  that  greater 
part,  that  it  had  heights  and  depths  surpassing 
quite  the  limits  of  our  understanding. 

The  period  of  temptation  is  described  by  each 
of  the  Evangelists  as  a  fast.  It  would  be  natural 
for  a  Jew  to  connect  this  fast  with  those  fastines 
that  were  familiar  in  his  religion.  But  this  fast 
was  not  ceremonial  nor  arbitrary,  nor  was  it 
disciplinary.  It  was  not  even  intentional.  It 
was  a  result  at  once  of  the  afflatus  of  the  Spirit 
and  of  the  Temptation  by  the  Devil,  and  had  its 
origin  in  the  intense  excitement  of  our  Lord's 
whole  being.  This  is  indicated  by  the  fact  which 
S.  Luke  as  well  as  S.  Matthew  tells,  that  while 
Jesus  ate  "nothing  in  those  days,"  it  was 
not   till    afterwards    that    He    felt  the  pain    and 


"IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON"  57 

weakness  of  hunger :  "He  was  afterward  an 
hungered." 

This  subsistence  for  so  long  a  time  without 
food  is  probably  to  be  regarded  as  a  spiritual  and 
mental  phenomenon  rather  than  scrutinised  as  a 
mere  physical  marvel.  We  see  the  same  thing 
in  the  fasts  of  Moses  and  Elijah,  which  were  of 
similar  duration ;  and  kindred  fasts  are  not  un- 
known to  modern  observation  as  occurring  in 
experiences  of  a  much  more  common  sort  than 
these.  It  seems  that,  in  certain  states  of  great 
mental  and  spiritual  tension,  the  material  body 
can  be  sustained  by  simple  contact  with  the 
intense  energy  of  the  spirit.^  This  was  the  case 
with  Jesus  in  the  Wilderness  when  His  spirit  was 
freshly  and  largely  touched  by  the  Spirit  of  God 
and  He  was  tempted  of  the  Devil.  During  the 
eventful  time,  physical  needs  were  as  if  sus- 
pended, and  He  had  no  consciousness  of  want. 
But  at  the  end  of  the  forty  days  a  great  reaction 
came.  The  excitement,  nervous  and  mental, 
which  had  accompanied  His  spiritual  exaltation, 
was  gone  ;  nature  reasserted  her  claims,  and  the 
man  Jesus  sank  down  in  utter  exhaustion  of  body. 

At  this  point  let  us  think  carefully  of  the  full 

^  Analogous  are  the  abnormal  energy  and  endurance  which  are 
sometimes  observed  in  morbid  states  :  for  example,  in  hysteria. 


58  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

siofnificance  of  the  hungfer  which  S.  Matthew  and 
S.  Luke  both  tell  of  as  succeeding  our  Saviour's 
prolonged  fast.  The  onset  of  hunger  marks  the 
close  of  a  super-ordinary  state  in  which  He  was 
without  food  yet  insensible  of  want.  Jesus  has 
now  descended  from  that  exaltation  in  which  He 
met  His  unique  and  unrecorded  trials.  Its 
physical  effects  are  now  felt  in  a  prostration 
whose  depth  matches  the  height  which  has  pre- 
ceded it.  The  resources  of  the  Tempter  are 
almost  exhausted.  The  siege  of  the  Saviour's 
soul  has  been  relaxed,  so  that  the  tension  of  His 
trial  has  been  succeeded  by  a  corresponding 
mental,  nervous,  and  bodily  relaxment.  The 
delayed  sense  of  His  accumulating  weakness  now 
overtakes  our  Lord  ;  and  in  this  state  of  readiness 
to  faint  the  Tempter  sees  his  final  opportunity ; 
and  it  is  with  so  great  a  disadvantage  that  Jesus 
has  to  meet  his  last  attempts  to  snare  His  faith 
and  beat  down  His  loyalty. 

We  note  that  in  what  we  are  told  of  the 
Temptation  we  see  Jesus  tried  in  the  hour  of  His 
greatest  weakness.  This  is  important,  because  it 
brings  His  experience  near  to  us  who  also  suffer 
exhaustion  and  depression.  The  super-ordinary 
character  of  the  forty  days  of  fasting  trial  removes 
it    from   our  sympathy,  and  largely  hinders  the 


"IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON"  59 

coming  of  definite  help  from  it  to  us.  Its  mingled 
ecstasy  and  agony  are  foreign  to  our  experience, 
who  live  on  a  plain  level  of  ordinariness,  which  is 
broken  by  depths  far  oftener  than  by  heights. 
But  there  is  comfort  and  encouragement  for  us 
in  the  fact  that  the  trial  of  Jesus  was  not  confined 
to  the  days  and  weeks  of  His  exaltation.  He 
returned  to  the  level  of  ordinary  consciousness. 
He  there  took  up  the  burden  of  great  weakness, 
and,  sharing  our  greatest  disadvantage,  He  met 
Satan  "  like  as  we  are  "  in  our  weakest  moments  ; 
and  with  only  fainting  strength  He  overcame 
temptation. 

Perhaps  this  is  one  reason  why  these  tempt- 
ations, and  these  only,  are  told  us :  because  they 
show  us  Jesus,  standing  on  no  height  of  vantage, 
but  in  a  situation  differing  from  ours  only  in  the 
depth  of  His  state  and  the  direness  of  His  straits. 
See  Him  there  in  the  Wilderness,  in  the  sunken 
weariness  of  six  weeks'  abstinence,  and  compare 
His  trial  with  ours,  in  which  in  health  and  comfort 
we  meet  temptation  in  the  affairs  of  every  day ; 
and  seeing,  let  us  know  that  He  suffered  all  that 
we  can,  and  immeasurably  more. 

To  Jesus  in  this  state  and  situation  the 
Tempter  comes. 


6o  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Comhig  up  to  Hmi, — for  that  is  the  realistic 
phrase/ — he  says,  in  the  rendering  of  our  A.V., 
If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God.  This  should  read,  If 
Thou  be  a  Son  of  God  or  God's  Son}  It  occurs 
in  the  same  form  in  S.  Luke's  Gospel.  There  is 
an  official  ring  about  The  Son  of  God,  and  that 
form  has  passed  into  our  English  version  from 
theology.  The  Son  is  a  title  ;  and  while  it  is  not 
unnatural  for  believers  to  expect  the  title  here, 
we  may  see  that  God's  Son  is  more  in  place  in 
the  Gospel  interpretation  of  the  great  Outlaw's 
address  to  the  Son  of  the  King.  The  acquaintance 
of  the  Devil  with  the  Christ  could  only  be  of  an 
unofficial  sort. 

When  the  recorded  Temptation  opens  with 
this  abrupt  challenge,  If  Thou  be  God's  Son,  we 
hear  a  mocking  echo  of  the  voice  of  Jesus'  heart 
and  the  cry  that  had  been  His  since  He  was  a 
young  lad.  "  My  Father "  He  had  said  these 
twenty  years  ago.  "  My  Father  "  He  now  cried 
in  the  Wilderness  when  sore  pressed  by  the 
Devil.  And  Satan  took  up  His  words  saying: 
If  Thou  be  God's  Son.  Further,  this  challenge 
seems  to  hint  that,  in  the  unchronicled  time  pre- 
ceding, a  battle  had  been  fought  regarding  the 

1  7rpo(reX6o)V  avroJ,  Matt.  iv.  3. 

2  See  Appendix,  II.,  Ec  vtos  t'  toO  Otov,  p.  220. 


"IF  THOU  BE  GOD^S  SON^'  6i 

Sonship  of  Jesus.  Whether  or  not  Satan  pro- 
fesses to  doubt  this,  the  purpose  of  his  address 
may  well  be  to  suggest  to  Jesus  the  doubt  ex- 
pressed in  the  If.  .  .  .  The  moment  was  certainly- 
opportune  for  such  a  suggestion.  There  is  a 
strength  in  conflict  which  the  conflict  itself  en- 
genders. Strength  is  confident;  but  doubt  is  a 
disease  of  prostration.  And  Jesus  is  now  prostrate 
after  His  recent  exaltation.  To  its  ecstasy  there 
has  succeeded  a  severe  reaction.  If  ever  He 
could  be  induced  to  doubt  God  and  Himself,  this 
is  the  psychological  moment  when  that  might  be. 
God's  Son !  How  unlike  that  was  His  state ! 
To  the  Devil  He  seemed,  as  in  Himself  He  felt, 
only  a  fainting  man.  There  He  shrank,  crushed 
and  bent  by  the  heaviest  weight  a  man  can  know 
— the  weight  of  utter  weakness.  Thus  He  stood, 
torn  by  the  pains  of  forty  days'  fasting.  Son  of 
God,  indeed !  How  could  such  a  One  suffer 
so?  Where  was  His  strength,  and  where  His 
dignity?  Where  was  the  power  of  God  to 
command  ?  '*  My  God,  My  God,  why  hast  Thou 
forsaken  Me?"  might  well  be  the  cry  of  Jesus 
now  as  on  the  Cross ;  for  this  was  the  hour  and 
the  power  of  darkness :  this  was  the  time  for 
doubt. 

When  the  Tempter  says.  If  Thou  be  God's 


62  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Son,  we  witness  a  bold  attempt  to  come  between 
the  Tempted  One  and  His  sense  of  the  fulness  of 
God  which  had  recently  descended  upon  Him 
and  filled  Him  with  all  strength.  The  exhaus- 
tion  of  Jesus  seems  to  indicate  a  possibility  that 
He  may  be  severed  from  His  fellowship  with 
the  Spirit  of  His  Father.  He  is  prostrate  and 
pained  with  hunger:  can  His  sense  of  Sonship 
to  God  and  of  trust  in  His  Father  stand  this 
test  of  weakness  and  suffering?  In  exaltation 
He  was  full  of  confidence ;  but  now,  may  He 
not  hesitate  ? 

If  Thou  be  .  .  .  The  essence  of  this  sug- 
gestion is  that  it  would  turn  the  eyes  and  the 
thought  and  affection  of  Jesus  away  from  God 
and  towards  Himself.  Each  of  the  first  two  re- 
corded Temptations  invites  Him  to  think  about 
Himself;  to  assert  and  vindicate  Himself.  The 
third  Temptation  is  a  proposal  to  enrich  and 
glorify  Himself  by  means  that  shall  deny  God. 
Each  of  our  Lord's  replies  to  these  several 
suggestions  meets  this  aspect  of  them.  Each  is 
a  simple  assertion  of  God,  and  Him  only.  God's 
word  is  His  first  answer ;  God's  will  is  His 
second ;  God's  worship  His  third.  Thus  does 
Jesus  look  up  to  God  and  forget  Himself.  His 
Sonship  does  not  concern   Him.     He  is  content 


"IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON"  6$ 

to  rest  in  the  Fatherhood  of  His  God,  and  to  let 
His  Father  vindicate  His  Son  according  to  His 
pleasure. 

There  is  a  great  lesson  here  for  all  the 
brethren  of  Jesus.  We  must  sink  self  and  raise 
God.  We  must  forget  self  and  remember  God, 
and  trust  Him  without  care  for  self.  If  we 
magnify  His  loving  Fatherhood,  we  shall  not 
linger  to  look  at  ourselves  and  admire  or  vindi- 
cate our  standing  as  His  sons. 

There  is  a  remarkable  parallelism  between 
the  saying  of  Satan  to  Jesus,  If  Thou  be  God's 
Son,  and  the  saying  of  the  Serpent  in  Eden, 
"  Ye  shall  be  as  gods."  The  temptation  is  the 
same  in  both  cases :  viz.  to  make  an  upward 
reach  on  behalf  of  self — a  stretch  and  grasp  with- 
out regard  to  the  word  and  will  of  God.  Per- 
haps S.  Paul  had  in  view  these  two  temptations, 
that  in  Eden  and  that  in  the  W^ilderness,  when 
he  wrote  to  the  Philippians :  "  He  thought  it 
not  a  prize  to  be  snatched,  to  be  equal  with  God, 
but  emptied  Himself."^  For  Jesus  not  only 
evaded  doubt  when  His  consciousness  of  God 
precluded  consciousness  of  self  and  self-assertion. 
In  His  rejection  of  the  suggestion,  1/  Thou  be 
God's  Son,  we  find  the  exact  reversal  of  the 
1  Phil.  ii.  6,  7. 


64  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

choice  of  mankind  which  is  pictured  in  the  drama 
of  the  Fall.  To  be  as  gods,  men  sinned :  to 
redeem  from  sin,  Jesus  refused  to  arrogate  the 
privilege  of  Sonship  in  the  way  to  which  the 
Tempter  prompted.  He  looked  not  "on  His  own 
thinos,  but  on  the  things  of  others,"  ^  those  others 
whom  He  came  to  save.  And  always  He  looked 
chiefly  on  the  things  of  God. 

The  suggestion  contained  in  the  Tempter's 
If  Tho7t  be  God's  Son  is  not  only  a  subtle  but  also 
a  very  complex  snare,  because  the  paralysis  of 
doubt  and  the  impulse  to  self-assertion  are  very 
close  to  each  other,  both  in  this  temptation  and  in 
the  common  experience  of  men.  The  note  of 
doubt  which  occurs  in  the  two  first  Temptations 
goes  along  with  the  prompting  to  self-assertion, 
which  is  a  chief  feature  of  all  the  three.  This 
note  of  doubt  was  recurrent,  and  indeed  per- 
sistent, all  through  our  Lord's  ministry.  He  did 
not  advance  Himself,  but  "emptied  Himself,"^ 
both  here  and  all  through  His  active  work.  And 
the  humiliation  and  emptying  of  Jesus  were  an 
offence  to  those  to  whom  He  appealed.  It  was  a 
cloud  that  darkened  their  sight  of  Him  ;  and  it 
would  have  darkened  His  own  heart  if  the  light 
of  God's  Spirit  had  been  only  near  Him  and  not 

1  Phil.  ii.  4.  -  Phil.  ii.  7. 


"IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON"  65 

within  Him.  In  His  poverty  and  meanness  of 
surroundings,  in  His  toil  and  pain,  men  looked 
at  Him  ;  and  the  mighty  works  He  did  made 
His  humiliation  only  the  more  marked.  God's 
Son,  indeed !  The  absurdity  was  plain  to  un- 
spiritual  eyes.  Often  it  must  have  been  spoken 
in  His  ears ;  oftener  far  it  was  whispered  by 
Satan  in  His  heart.  "This  shall  not  be  unto 
Thee,"  said  S.  Peter :  if  Thou  be  God's  Son. 
"  Wilt  Thou  that  we  command  fire  to  come  down 
from  heaven  and  consume  them : "  ^  if  Thou 
be  God's  Son.  Satan's  doubtful  If  was  by  no 
means  heard  by  Jesus  for  the  last  time  when 
He  had  answered  it  twice  over  in  the  Wilder- 
ness. We  may  learn  that  this  was  the  very 
heart  of  the  Temptations  of  "  God  manifest  in 
the  flesh,"  when  we  hear  how  it  hissed  around 
Him  as  He  hung  upon  the  Cross.  Satan  found 
many  to  do  his  bidding  and  speak  his  words 
that  day.  It  is  his  voice  that  we  hear  above 
the  clamour  :  If  Thou  be  God's  Son,  come  down." 
If  He  be  the  King  of  Israel,  let  Him  now  come 
down  from  the  Cross?  Not  till  the  last  hour  in 
which  Jesus  died  did  Satan  cease  to  play  this 
snare  upon  His  heart. 

In,  one  aspect  of  it,  our  Lord's  consistent  use 

^  Luke  ix.  54.  -  Matt,  xxvii.  40.         °  Matt,  xxvii.  42. 

5 


66  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

of  the  title  Son  of  Man  may  be  seen  to  be  a 
sustained  answer  to  this  Temptation  in  its  per- 
sistent recurrence.  It  was  important  that  there 
should  be  no  ambiguity  concerning  the  true 
humanness  of  our  Lord's  nature.  It  might  be 
one  design  of  the  Tempter  to  commit  Him  to 
such  a  line  of  conduct  as  would  create  or  con- 
firm confusion  on  this  point.  This  confusion 
certainly  arose  in  the  minds  of  many  during 
His  ministry.  We  find  in  the  Gospels  abun- 
dant traces  of  the  theory  that  Jesus  was  a  Son 
of  God  in  the  sense  that  Satan  himself  was 
held  to  be  so.  It  was  the  refuge  of  those  who, 
devoid  of  spiritual  insight  and  moral  discern- 
ment, credited  His  super-ordinary  powers  to  an 
evil  source. 

The  dependence  of  Jesus  upon  God,  which 
He  constantly  cultivated,  is  one  great  key  to  the 
mystery  of  the  Divine  power  which  filled  Him. 
His  refusal  to  assert  Himself,  which  is  found  here 
and  all  through  His  life,  is  essential  to  its  inner 
meaning  and  secret.  He  emptied  and  effaced 
Himself  in  order  to  show  forth  God ;  and  God 
answered  His  self-effacement,  which  was  perfect, 
with  a  perfect  filling  and  glorifying  of  His  Son. 
It  is  strange  that,  while  the  New  Testament  so 
emphasises  the  nXijpcoiia,  the    Fulness  of  Jesus, 


"IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON"  6j 

recent   theology  should  have  made  so  much   of 
His  k4vo}(ti<;,  emptying.     All  that  we  are  told  of 
the  Father's  dealing  with  His  Son  is  of  the  nature 
of  7r\ijpa)(TL<;,  giving  to  Him  of  His  fulness;  and 
there  was  no  conflict  between  the  Son's  emptying 
of  Himself  and  this  filling  by  His  Father.     The 
Kevo)cn<5  of  the  Son  of  God  is  seen  perfectly  in  all 
His  Temptations,  and  especially  in  the  Wilderness 
and    in    Gethsemane   and    on    the    Cross.      The 
Wilderness  Temptation  is  specially  instructive  in 
this  connection,  because  here  we  see  the  TrXtjpcoixa, 
of  the  Baptism  of  Jesus  in  close  conjunction  with 
His  AceVcoo-t?  before  Satan.     Far  too   much  dog- 
matic significance  has  been  drawn  from  specula- 
tion and   put   into    the   emptying.      He  had  the 
fulness    of  God  without    measure,   even   in    His 
bodily  life  :  J^or  in  Him  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of 
the  Godhead  bodily}    He  had  fulness  of  Sonship,  of 
equipment  and  all  fitness.     The  emptying  which 
we  see  in  the  Wilderness  is  an  emptying  of  His 
human  will,  in  order  that  the  will  of  God  might 
be  fully  operative  in  Him.     His  K-eVwcrt?  is  self- 
emptying  not  towards  God,  but  in   His  manifest- 
ing of  Himself  and   His    powers.     While  filled 
with  God's  Spirit,  we  see  Him  in  the  Wilderness 
empty  Himself  specially   of  pretensions,   as   He 

^  Col.  ii.  9. 


68  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

afterwards  did,  often  and  all  along.^  He  emptied 
Himself  of  all  that  was  merely  for  Himself.  He 
was  emptied  of  nothing  that  was  of  use  for 
others  or  for  the  glory  of  God.  Such  an 
emptying  made  no  emptiness  ;  it  did  but  make 
room  for  the  fulness  of  God.  It  was  the  way 
for  the  man  Jesus  to  be  filled  with  the  Spirit  and 
all  knowledge  and  power.  And  so  is  it  the  way 
for  all  men  and  for  Humanity  to  be  filled  from 
God. 

In  an  earlier  glimpse  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
when  we  are  shown  Him  as  a  boy  in  the 
Temple,  we  hear  Him  claim  God  as  His 
Father  with  that  marvellous  simplicity  which 
moves  our  heart  to  admiring:  love.  He 
brought  that  faith  to  His  Baptism  at  Jordan  ; 
and  there,  by  a  particular  revelation  and  in 
a  special  sense,  it  was  confirmed.  With  a 
new  grand  consciousness  of  this.  He  left  His 
Baptism  and  faced  the  Wilderness.  God  was 
His  Father:  the  knowledge  of  this  was  His 
great  strength  and  equipment  as  His  purpose 
turned  towards  the  world's  salvation  and  grew 
clearer  and  more  firmly  definite.     God  was  His 

^  With  much  insight,  the  makers  of  our  A.V.  have  made  this 
interpretation  of  S.  Paul's  use  of  the  word  Mvoiii  ;  but  they  have 
not  iraiislatcd  it. 


"IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON"  69 

Father:  the  world  was  to  Him  His  Father's 
house  ;  His  heart  was  filled  with  love  and  music. 
He  was  God's  Son  :  this  was  the  revelation  of 
the  descending  Spirit  which  John  saw  as  a  Dove, 
and  of  the  accompanying  voice.  This  called  Jesus 
out  to  the  world  and  to  His  work  in  it.  That 
strength  Satan  sought  to  unnerve  to  weakness, 
that  its  purpose  of  Salvation  might  be  turned 
aside  to  failure.  That  love  he  would  undermine 
with  distrustful  doubt.  That  music  of  the  heart 
he  would  change  to  discord.  So  victory  for  evil 
might  be  easy,  and  the  enterprise  of  Salvation  be 
prevented  ere  it  was  begun.  But  Jesus  brought 
out  from  the  Wilderness  Temptation  the  faith  and 
strength  of  heart  and  the  loving  harmony  with 
God,  which  were  His  when  He  went  up  from 
Baptism  with  the  Spirit  to  meet  that  conflict 
and  sore  trial  which  are  the  closest  baptism, 
enlarging  the  gifts  of  God  with  every  endea- 
vour, and  sealing  their  application  with  every 
choice. 

The  first  call  of  the  Christian  life  is  to  know 
God  as  our  Father  in  Jesus  and  by  His  Spirit. 
In  the  confidence  and  joy  of  that  knowledge, 
nothing  else  in  all  experience  matters  much. 
"As  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He 
power  to  become  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  them 


70  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

that  believe  on  His  name  :  which  were  born,  not 
of  blood  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the 
will  of  man,  but  of  God."  ^     If  we  know  this  son- 
ship,  which  belongs  to  those  who  are  born  again, 
all  else  follows  naturally.     The  low  is  not  loved, 
the  sordid  is  despised,  the  noble  is  chosen  :  when 
the  fellowship  of  God  is  held,  the  temptations  of  , 
Satan  are  robbed  of  their  power.     Just  because 
this  faith  is  the  foundation  of  Christian  life  and 
experience  and  power,  it  is  specially  assailed  by 
the  Tempter  in  our  hearts,  as  it  was  in  Jesus'. 
But  in   us  its   confidence  is   too  often  turned  to 
doubt  and  its  dignity  foregone.     On  the  threshold 
of  activity,  when  we  are  in  the  wilderness,  it  is 
doubt  that  unnerves  the  spirit  and  slackens  the 
fibre  of  character  and  relaxes  the  tension  of  en- 
deavour.     Youth,  which  is   the  season  of  high 
hopes  and  purposes,  is  also,  for  many  a  one,  the 
season  of  doubt.     Youth  has  many  a  doubt  as  to 
its  relation   to   God  ;    and,  for   the    cure  of  this, 
youth  has  need  to  be  among  them  that  continue 
with  Jesus   in   His  Temptations.     One  of  these 
has  given  this  message  to  his  brethren  :  "Now 
are  we  the  sons  of  God ;    and  it  doth  not  yet 
appear  what  we  shall  be  :  but  we  know  that,  when 
He   shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like   Him  ;  for  we 

*  John  i.  12,  13. 


"IF  THOU  BE  GOD'S  SON"  ^l 

shall  see  Him  as  He  is."^  And  this  is  the  mean- 
ing, for  us,  of  the  Temptation,  If  Thou  be  God's 
Son — a  meaning  that  we  learn  when  we  see  the 
example  of  Jesus  in  meeting  it :  **  Every  man 
that  hath  this  hope  in  him  purifieth  himself,  even 
as  He  is  pure."^ 

^  I  John  Hi.  2.  2  I  John  iii.  3. 


CHAPTER   V. 
THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER. 

I.    As    IT   CONCERNED    JeSUS. 


When  He  had  fasted  forty  days  and  forty  nights,  He 
was  afterward  an  hungered.  And  "when  the  Tempter  came 
to  Him,  he  said,  If  Thou  he  God^s  Son,  command  that  these 
stones  be  made  bread.  But  He  answered  and  said,  It  is 
written,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  hut  by  every 
word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God. — Matt.  iv. 
2-4. 


CHAPTER   V. 
THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER. 

I.    As    IT    CONCERNED    JeSUS. 

DOUBT  and  presumption  are  the  opposite 
ends  of  the  one  swing  of  the  pendulum 
of  an  unsettled  heart  that  fails  to  sink  to  rest 
on  the  central  will  of  God.  Both  of  these  ex- 
tremes are  found  within  the  compass  of  the  first 
Temptation. 

The  hungry  faintness  which  followed  our 
Lord's  long  fast  is  the  link  that  joins  the  re- 
corded Temptations  to  what  has  gone  before 
them  but  is  left  untold.  We  doubt  not  that 
Satan  had  already  assailed  Jesus  with  all  his 
strength.  Instead  of  assault  he  now  essays  to 
trap  Him  in  a  Snare.  The  first  Temptation  is  the 
Snare  of  Htmger.  The  first  coil  of  its  entangle- 
ment is  a  suggested  doubt  of  the  Sonship  of 
Jesus  ;  the  last  is  the  proposal  of  a  presumptuous 


75 


^6  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

assertion  of  that  Sonship  and  an  unwarranted 
exertion  of  its  power. 

The  Tempter  makes  Jesus  a  spectacle  to  Him- 
self. He  had  been  filled  with  a  strange  new 
consciousness  of  His  Divine  relation,  and  with 
a  joyous  assurance  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  to 
whom  He  was  the  well-beloved  and  well-pleasing 
Son.  But  now,  in  His  prostrate  weakness  and 
apparent  desertion  —  Can  it  be  ?  There  is  de- 
rision in  the  accent  of  the  question,  which  in- 
spires to  doubt ;  there  is  insolent  challenge  in 
the  suggestion,  which  provokes  the  Son  of  God 
to  verify  His  standing.  When  Jesus  was  thus 
shown  Himself  as  seen  by  the  eye  of  Satan,  there 
was  no  appearance  of  Sonship  as  the  Tempter 
understood  that  rank.  How  could  it  be  ?  So 
the  suggestion  of  doubt  was  pressed  in  upon  the 
Saviour's  heart,  if  He  would  but  entertain  it ; 
and  the  impulse  to  assert  Himself  was  prompted 
urgently.  The  merest  possibility  of  doubt  might 
be  abolished  on  the  instant,  on  the  spot.  Let 
Jesus  but  command  that  these  stones  which  lie 
within  His  hand's  reach  be  turned  to  bread  : 
this  one  God-like  act  shall  suffice  at  once  to 
reassure  Himself  and  to  silence  the  taunts  of 
Satan  with  conviction. 

The  suggestion  was  a  feasible   one.     There 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  TJ 

were  the  stones,  and  His  was  the  power  to 
command  :  one  word  and  it  should  suffice.  And 
while  Satan  thus  pled,  his  plea  was  reinforced  by 
the  urgency  of  Jesus'  hunger.  To  this  also  the 
Tempter  appealed  with  mingled  commiseration 
and  challenge  :  Thou  art  faint  and  hungry  ;  that 
need  not  be.  If  Thou  be  God's  Son,  Thou  hast 
power  to  make  the  very  stones  around  Thee  turn 
to  bread  at  Thy  commanding  word.  Further, 
Jesus  felt  ready  to  die  in  His  exhaustion  ;  and 
the  Tempter's  proposal  may  have  meant :  Let  ^ 
God's  Son  preserve  the  life  and  strength  of  His  [( 
manhood  for  His  work  as  a  man.  In  this  view, 
our  Lord's  faith  is  here  tried  by  the  fear  of  im- 
minent death;  and  in  this  aspect  His  Temptation 
is  like  the  trial  in  which  that  "profane  person" 
Esau  ^  failed,  when  he  sold  his  birthright  for  food, 
saying:  "  Behold,  I  am  at  the  point  to  die;  and 
what  profit  shall  this  birthright  do  to  me?  "^ 

The  Snare  of  Hunger  was  thus  a  very  subtle 
net,  and  widely  spread  to  catch  our  Lord  at  one 
point  and  another.  It  (i)  suggested  the  Devil's 
doubt  for  Him  to  convince,  and  (2)  proposed  to 
Jesus  a  doubt  on  His  part  to  be  dispelled: 
(3)  it  appealed  to  the  pain  of  hunger,  and  (4) 
it  conjured  up   the  fear  of  death,  which  threat- 

1  Heb.  xii.  16.  '^  Gen.  xxv.  32. 


78  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

ened    to    cut    short   the  Saviour's  work    or  ever 
He  had  entered  on  its  ministry. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  Temptation 
that  is  deeper  than  any  of  these,  and  so  compre- 
hensive as  to  include  them  all. 
V-  We  have  seen  that  Jesus  is  here  tempted  to 

'  jimeet  His  circumstances,  in  His  own  interest,  as 
'  God's  Son.  This  is  the  heart  of  the  Snare.  To 
do  so  would  have  been  to  abandon  the  attitude 
of  His  humiliation  and  evade  His  mission  of 
Salvation.  The  mission  of  God's  Son  among 
men  was  to  be  a  man  and  to  behave  as  a  man  ; 
to  suffer  and  die  as  a  man.  And  here,  at  the 
very  outset  of  His  undertaking  in  its  public 
phase,  we  see  Him  tempted  to  a  course  which 
was  inconsistent  with  that  mission  and  its 
conditions. 

This  deepest  aspect  of  this  Temptation,  which 
it  shares  with  the  following  one,  is  indicated  by 
Jesus  Himself  in  His  reply  to  the  Tempter.  He 
answers,  not  as  Son  of  God,  but  as  a  man.  Even 
in  His  fainting  weakness  He  takes  up  the 
burden  God  has  laid  upon  Him.  This  Tempt- 
ation is  a  seemingly  harmless  proposal  to  allay 
natural  appetite  by  a  lawful  exertion  of  power. 
But  our  Lord  sees  that  to  acquiesce  would 
involve  a  violation  of  the  conditions  under  which 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  79 

He  is  placed,  an  evasion  of  His  trial  as  a  man. 
Therefore  He  refuses  to  shirk  the  consequences 
of  His  humiliation ;  He  speaks  as  a  man,  and  as 
under  God's  law  which  is  for  men  when  He  says  : 
It  is  written,  "  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone, 
but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  God." 

The  quotation  is  from  the  eighth  chapter 
of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  where  the  reference 
is  to  the  miraculous  sustenance  of  Israel  in  the 
wilderness.  His  use  of  this  shows  that  Jesus 
first  affirms  trustful  reliance  upon  God  for  the 
supply  of  His  necessity.  He  has  been  tempted 
to  distrust ;  and  the  turning  of  stones  into  bread 
would  have  been,  as  it  were,  an  act  of  theft  from 
God  perpetrated  by  the  Son  of  Man.  As  for 
His  life  that  seemed  likely  to  perish,  the  faith 
and  understanding  of  Jesus  were  not  inferior 
to  those  of  His  Forerunner,  who  had  said  in 
the  wilderness  of  Jordan  :  "  God  is  able  of  these 
stones  to  raise  up  children  unto  Abraham." 
And  Jesus  may  well  have  told  Satan  that  God 
was  able,  not  merely  to  make  bread  for  Him 
of  these  stones,  but  of  them  to  raise  up  a  Son 
to  Himself,  to  do  His  perfect  will. 

The  Snare  of  Hunger,  therefore,  by  which 
our   Lord   was  tempted,    did    not    merely   affect 


8o  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

expediency ;  it  involved  principles  that  touched 
both  His  relations  with  God  His  Father  and 
with  the  men  whose  Salvation  it  was  His  mission 
on  earth  to  accomplish.  Thus,  also,  the  Tempter's 
finger  pointed  far  further  than  these  stones  of 
the  desert  which  he  challenged  Jesus  to  turn 
into  bread.  It  pointed  to  the  whole  extent 
of  His  savino-  work,  and  counselled  a  false 
step  which  would  have  led  to  false  methods  in 
these.  And  the  answer  of  Jesus  was  not  less 
inclusive  in  its  scope.  We  have  seen  (in  Chapter 
IV.)  the  parallelism  between  the  Eden  Tempt- 
ation, "Ye  shall  be  as  gods,"  and  this  in  the 
Wilderness,  If  Thou  be  God's  Son.  So  also  we 
must  notice  that  both  the  Eden  Temptation  and 
this  of  our  Lord  in  the  Wilderness  are  examples 
of  the  Snare  of  Appetite.  In  Eden  we  see  men 
despise  the  will  of  God  and  distrust  His  word. 
We  see  them  choose  the  gratifying  of  an  appetite 
which  was  not  hunger,  but  mere  lust  amid  ample 
provision.  In  consequence  of  this  we  see  them 
turned  away  from  the  Tree  of  Life.  But  here 
we  see  Jesus  turn  away  from  appetite  to  choose 
the  way  of  the  Tree  of  Life — that  tree  which 
is  the  Word  of  God,  and  whose  "  leaves  are 
for  the  healino-  of  the  nations."^     He  chose  the 

o 

^  Rev.  xxii.  2. 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  8i 

higher  instead  of  the  lower,  and  in  so  doin^ 
He  grasped  the  secret  of  life  and  healing  and 
health  not  only  for  Himself,  but  for  all  men 
who  should  come  after  Him  in  faith.  The 
life-giving  results  of  this  choice  were  shown  in 
all  His  works  of  power  and  healing  in  His 
ministry  ;  and  they  are  still  seen  working  in  the 
world,  and  shall  be  seen  increasingly  till  the 
last  enemy  is  destroyed,  even  death.  Here,  then, 
the  choice  of  Eden  is  reversed  by  the  Second 
Adam.  Men  had  been  banished  from  the  Tree 
of  Life  by  a  sin  of  appetite  and  faithless  distrust ; 
and  now  the  way  is  opened  for  their  return  to 
it  by  the  trustful  faith  of  Jesus  towards  God, 
and  by  His  refusal  of  Satan's  Snare  of  Hunger. 

Broadly  stated  in  general  terms,  the  heart 
of  this  Temptation  was  its  incitement  to  put 
bodily  life  and  physical  interests  before  trust 
in  God  and  obedience  to  Him.  The  miracle 
proposed  to  Jesus  would  have  been  an  act  of 
confidence  in  Himself  instead  of  faith  in  God  ; 
and  "whatsoever  is  not  of  faith  is  sin."^  There 
was  no  sin  in  a  miraculous  making  of  bread. 
Jesus  Himself  did  that  more  than  once, 
and  fed  thousands  of  hungry  folk  by  the  very 
power  which   He  now  refused  to  exercise.     But 

^  Rom.  xiv.  23. 


82  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

on  one  of  these  occasions  we  see  the  recurrence 
of  one  phase  of  His  present  Temptation  when, 
because  He  had  fed  them,  the  people  wished 
"to  take  Him  by  force  to  make  Him  a  King."^ 
The  Snare  of  Hunger  was  then  once  again 
laid  by  the  Tempter,  if  haply  he  might  catch 
the  Saviour  in  its  toils  along  with  the  crowds 
He  had  fed.  But  He  who  overcame  temptation 
in  the  solitary  wildness  of  the  desert  turned 
from  it  amid  the  Galilean  crowd,  and  went  His 

I    way  to  be  alone  with  God. 

' —  There  is  a  familiar  saying  of  our  Lord's, 
the  terms  of  which  may  be  best  understood 
when  read  in  the  li^ht  of  this  Snare  of  the 
Wilderness:  "If  a  son  shall  ask  bread  of  any 
of  you  that  is  a  father,  will  he  give  him  a  stone  ? 
Or  if  he  ask  a  fish,  will  he  for  a  fish  give  him 
a  serpent  ?  Or  if  he  shall  ask  an  e.gg,  will  he 
offer  him  a  scorpion  ? "  ^  There  is  an  apparent 
exaggeration  about  these  terms  that  requires  ex- 
planation. To  enforce  Divine  truth  by  contrast 
with  evident  absurdity  is  very  unlike  our  Lord's 
calm  speech.  Why  should  He  so  speak  who 
so  often  and  so  beautifully  made  truthful  nature 
illustrate  His  higher  spiritual  truth?  We 
naturally    ask    this ;   but    the   difficulty    of  these 

•Johnvi.  15.  *  Luke  xi.  II,  12. 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  83 

words  disappears  when  we  find  in  them  a  hidden 
reference  to  the  Wilderness  Temptation  of  the 
Snare  of  Hunger.  In  this  saying  our  Lord 
speaks  the  language  of  His  experience  in  the 
desert ;  and  that  not  confessedly  nor  purposely, 
but  inspired  by  vivid  recollection.  How  deeply 
the  impression  of  this  Snare  in  the  Wilderness 
was  scored  upon  His  mind  and  heart,  is  seen 
by  this.  He  remembers  that  He  was  hungry 
in  a  far-off,  stony  place,  where  there  were 
serpents  and  scorpions.  And  in  His  faintness 
He  asked  His  Father  for  bread.  And  the 
Tempter  pointed  to  a  stone,  saying  that  in  this 
He  might  find  the  answer  to  His  asking.  If 
He  but  took  it  as  God's  Son,  whose  word  had 
power,  that  stone  might  be  bread  in  His  hand; 
that  serpent,  a  fish  ;  that  scorpion,  an  egg. 
And  Jesus  indignantly  resented  the  insinuation 
that  His  Heavenly  Father  would  so  answer 
the  asking  of  His  Son.  God  would  not  do  so. 
If  any  hungry  son  of  His  shall  ask  bread  of 
Him,  He  will  give  him  His  living  word  and 
the  Spirit  who  is  His  breath.  For  as  an 
earthly  father  will  not  give  his  boy  a  stone  to 
break  his  teeth  on,  so  God  will  not  be  outdone 
by  man,  but  will  give  to  His  children  only  what 
is  life-giving. 


84  THE  TEMPl^ATION  OF  JESUS 

The  Wilderness  Temptation  did  but  con- 
centrate into  a  word  temptations  that  beset  our 
Lord  through  all  His  ministry.  In  all  His  work 
amongst  hungry  men  Jesus  had  to  avoid  the 
Snare  of  Hunger  which  was  both  around  Him 
and  upon  them.  The  Son  of  God,  who  "  so 
loved  the  world,"  was  the  great  Philanthropist 
of  all  the  ages.  His  heart  of  love  ached  with 
the  sorrows  and  burdens  that  were  upon  the 
men  around  Him  ;  and  as  "  He  went  about 
doing  good,"  often  the  Snare  of  Hunger  must 
have  tempted  Him  to  minister  to  hungry  want 
with  the  power  of  His  Divine  Sonship.  He  who 
healed  disease,  and  walked  upon  the  waters,  and 
fed  thousands  on  a  hillside,  could  have  gone 
to  the  homes  of  poverty,  and  by  His  mere  word 
have  given  plenty  in  the  place  of  want.  Had 
He  done  so,  then  He  had  been  ensnared  by 
Hunger,  the  hunger  of  His  fellow-men.  They 
would  have  made  Him  King  because  He  fed 
them.  But  His  throne  had  then  been  made  of 
earth,  such  as  might  be  turned  to  bread  ;  and, 
though  His  crown  had  been  of  gold,  it  had  been 
less  the  symbol  of  true  sovereignty  than  a  picture 
of  the  price  men  paid  for  bread  ;  and  His  sceptre 
had  never  been  free  from  the  toils  of  the  Snare 
of  Hunger  meshed  round  it  and  round  the  hearts 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  85 

which  it  ruled  not  by  the  fear  or  love  of  God, 
but  by  the  fear  of  Hunger  and  the  love  of 
plenty. 

Jesus,  who  said,  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world,"  both  said  and  lived  the  truth  :  My 
Bread  is  not  of  this  world.  To  the  poor  He  gave 
no  largesse ;  and  when  He  made  them  rich 
towards  Heaven,  He  left  them  poor  towards  the 
world.  He  never  touched  the  problem  of  the 
world's  Hunorer  and  its  need  for  bread.  God's 
laws  of  industry  and  honesty  are  written  upon 
nature,  and  these  suffice  to  meet  the  world's  want 
for  its  own  life.  But  the  ministry  of  Jesus  was 
concerned  with  another  and  a  spiritual  life :  that 
ministry  He  steadfastly  pursued,  and  never 
swerved  to  spend  His  heavenly  power  on  less 
than  heavenly  ends.  He  constantly  and  urgently 
taught  against  the  Snare  of  Hunger,  warning  men 
of  their  minds'  and  hearts'  entanglement :  "  Take 
no  thought  for  your  life  what  ye  shall  eat ; " 
"  Labour  not  for  the  meat  which  perisheth ; " 
"  Seek  not  ye  what  ye  shall  eat,  or  what  ye  shall 
drink ;  but  rather  seek  ye  the  kingdom  of  God." 
By  such  teachings  Jesus  offended  His  hearers. 
They  fixed  and  hastened  His  rejection.  By  a 
bread  policy  for  others  in  His  ministry,  He  might 
have  saved  His  life  from  the  death  of  the  Cross, 


86  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

as  really  as  He  might  have  supported  it  in  the 
Wilderness  by  turning  stones  to  bread  to  feed 
Himself. 

The  fatal  operation  of  the  Snare  of  Hunger 
is  well  illustrated  in  the  history  of  Rome.  By 
means  of  bread,  Caius  Gracchus  filled  the  city 
with  his  subversive  proletariate.  Constantine,  the 
first  Christian  emperor,  gave  an  immense  daily 
largesse  of  bread  to  the  poor  of  his  Byzantine 
capital,  and  handed  down  a  very  curse  to  those 
who  came  after  him.  His  successors,  at  Rome, 
fed  a  hungry  idle  multitude  with  daily  distribu- 
tions of  bread  and  meat.  To  food  was  added 
costly  spectacles  ;  and  it  was  not  only  that  the 
provinces  were  drained  to  glut  the  capital,  but  on 
a  foundation  of  unsound  finance  Rome  became 
one  vast  gilded  theatre  filled  with  an  excited 
mob  of  dissipated  sight-seers.  And,  with  all  this 
pampering,  the  empire  was  rotten  and  totter- 
ing to  its  fall.  The  Snare  that  Jesus  rejected, 
the  Snare  of  Hunger,  did  this  fatal  work.  It 
smothered  noble  aspiration,  strangled  worthy 
purpose,  and  crippled  wholesome  enterprise.  Out 
of  free  Romans  it  made  ignoble  slaves.  To  learn 
what  Jesus  rejected  when,  in  His  ministry,  He 
cleared  His  footsteps  of  the  Snare  of  Hunger,  read 
the   history  of  later    Rome.       The    escape  from 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  Sy 

hunger  and  toil  was  almost  complete ;  but  it  led 
to  a  deepening  entanglement  in  cruelty  and  lust 
and  every  fleshly  vice,  and  through  these  to 
destruction.  This  was  the  fate  of  Csesar's 
throne,  and  it  was  the  fate  designed  by  the 
Tempter  for  the  throne  of  Jesus.  But  the  way  , 
of  life  was  the  way  of  toil  for  Jesus,  and  so  it  \ 
is  for  us. 

The  refusal  of  our  Lord  to  deal  with  men's 
hunger  was  necessary ;  and  its  reason  was  that 
He  came  with  a  commission  so  much  higher  than 
a  chancellary  one,  and  was  bent  upon  an  errand 
so  much  harder  than  any  ministry  of  temporal 
supplies.  When  Jesus  refused  to  make  bread  out 
of  the  desert  stones,  He  chose  the  way  of  life  for 
others  ;  and  for  Himself  He  chose  the  way  of  the 
Cross.  When  He  refused  to  give  the  power  of 
His  Godhead  to  cut  the  strangling  cords  of  the 
Snare  of  Hunger,  He  fixed  the  fate  of  His  ministry 
as  it  affected  the  many  hungry  of  Israel.  For  a 
while  "the  common  people  heard  Him  gladly;" 
but  only  few  had  any  hunger  for  the  Bread  of 
Life  He  offered  them  ;  and  it  was  because  He  had 
for  men  no  promise  of  the  world's  bread  that  in 
the  end  they  turned  from  Him  and  cried  Him  to 
His  death.  They  would  have  crowned  Him 
when  they  saw  that  He  could  dine  them  every 


8S  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

day ;    they  crucified    Him  when    they  knew  He 
would  not. 

"  If  Thou  be  God's  Son,  command  that  these 
stones  be  made  bread."  This  is  a  cry  of  men 
to  Heaven  till  this  day.  As  Satan  derided  the 
ungodlike  aspect  of  Jesus  and  His  helplessness  to 
help  Himself,  so  do  men  now  speak  the  language 
of  the  Tempter.  Amid  a  world  of  stones  and  dead 
things,  He  is  challenged  to  show  Himself  a  God 
after  the  likeness  of  the  unworthy  thoughts  of 
unspiritual  hearts.  Still  He  is  in  the  world,  the 
very  picture  of  self-defenceless  love  ;  and  still  He 
is  tempted  in  "  His  body,  which  is  the  Church." 
He  is  the  Son  of  Man  lifted  up ;  and  men  cry  to 
Him,  "Who  is  this  Son  of  Man  .> "  If  He  be 
God's  Son,  let  Him  prove  His  Sonship ;  let  Him 
give  us  bread  and  save  our  toil ;  "let  Him  come 
down  from  the  Cross,  and  we  will  believe  Him  ; " 
"  let  Him  save  Himself  and  us."  And  this  is  the 
answer  of  Jesus  to  hearts  ensnared  by  Hunger  : 
"  I  am  the  Bread  which  came  down  from  Heaven  : 
I  am  the  Living  Bread." 


CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER. 

2.    As   IT    CONCERNS    Us. 


When  the  Tempter  came  to  Hi7n,  he  said,  If  Thou  be 
God's  Son,  com.m.and  that  these  stones  be  made  bread. 
But  He  answered  and  said^  It  is  written,  Man  shall  not 
live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth 
out  of  the  mouth  of  God. — Matt.  iv.  3,  4. 


CHAPTER   VI. 
THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER. 

2.    As    IT    CONCERNS    Us. 

IN  the  broadest  view,  this  Temptation  concerns 
the  control  of  physical  impulse  by  moral 
effort ;  the  suppression  of  appetite ;  the  sub- 
serviency of  material  need  not  only  to  spiritual 
power,  but  also  to  spiritual  purposes  and  ends. 
In  human  experience,  the  claims  of  animal  life 
constantly  assert  themselves  in  opposition  to 
moral  principle  and  spiritual  expediency ;  and 
the  answer  and  example  of  Jesus  in  His  Tempt- 
ation teach  that  we  must  deny  even  the  most 
urgent  claims  of  physical  life  and  material  things, 
if  these  oppose  themselves  to  the  word  of  God 
and  His  will. 

Bread  is  an  appointed  means  of  physical  life  ; 
but  it  is  only  one  implement  among  many  in 
God's  hand.  From  the  mouth  of  God  came  man's 
breath  at  the  first ;  and  from  His  mouth  can  come 


92  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

his  sustenance  without  bread.  Jesus  trusted  God 
for  that ;  and,  if  need  be,  so  must  we ;  for  this  is 
the  secret  of  the  life  that  cannot  die.  Physical 
life  is  not  the  whole  of  life.  It  is  not  first  in 
importance  even  now  ;  it  shall  not  be  last  as  the 
goal  to  which  we  shall  attain.  To  teach  this  was 
one  great  aim  of  Jesus  in  His  ministry  ;  to  realise 
it  is  the  task  of  faith  ;  to  live  worthily  according 
to  that  faith  is  the  callino-  of  the  Christian  life. 

O 

That  faith  and  that  life  are  hard  to  men. 
The  Snare  of  Hunger  besets  every  man  ;  he  is 
born  within  its  toils  and  trapped  by  its  deception 
before  he  knows  good  from  evil,  or  can  judge 
between  his  rigrht  hand  and  his  left.  It  is  fittiuL^ 
that,  among  these  typical  Temptations  which  Jesus 
suffered  and  overcame,  the  first  should  be  this  one 
in  which  Satan  points  to  earth's  stones,  saying  :  Of 
these  make  bread.  The  world  is  full  of  stones  ; 
the  world  is  made  of  stones.  And  man,  though 
made  of  earth,  has  life,  and  his  life  needs  bread  ; 
and  the  problem  of  ordinary  life  is  :  How  to  turn 
dead  stones  into  bread  for  life.  Round  the  need 
of  bread  centres  the  interest  of  every  day.  To 
work  for  it,  we  give  our  hours  and  days  and 
years.  How  eager  are  all  men  about  bread ! 
How  great  is  that  quiet  earnestness  that  never 
slacks  from   the  endeavour  to  secure  and  enlaro-e 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  93 

their  livelihood !  Men  have  a  higher  life  than 
the  beasts ;  but  human  life  is  little  more  than 
a  disguised  ravening ;  and,  though  wits  and 
handiwork  take  the  place  of  teeth  and  claw, 
the  fight  for  bread  is  often  as  keen  and  cruel 
among  men  as  it  is  among  the  beasts  that  tear 
each  other  for  their  prey. 

When  Satan  pointed  the  hungry  Jesus  to 
those  stones,  he  saw  not  only  the  hunger  of  the 
Son  of  Man,  but  the  great  hunger  of  the  world 
which  Jesus  shared.  When  he  said,  Satisfy  that 
hunger  by  the  power  of  God,  he  tempted  Jesus, 
as  he  tempts  us  also,  to  revolt  from  the  conditions 
under  which  the  life  of  man  is  lived ;  for  it  is 
ordained  that  by  work  earth's  stones  shall  be 
turned  to  bread,  and  not  by  words.  That  law 
is  written  over  all  nature,  whose  life  each  man 
shares  for  a  while,  till,  with  the  rest  of  nature,  he 
too  must  die.  We  may  not,  cannot  live  by  our 
own  word.  Our  work  and  God's  word :  these 
are  the  conditions  of  life  for  us.  The  Snare  of 
Hunger  is  upon  us  every  time  our  heart  revolts 
against  the  necessity  of  labour  and  the  hardness 
of  toil,  and  every  time  our  weakness  cries  out 
against  the  burdens  laid  upon  its  faintness.  We 
escape  that  snare  only  when  we  take  toil  and 
heaviness   as  the  will  of  God  for  us,    and   seek 


94  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

His  strength  to  do  and  bear,  and  trust   His  love 
to  save. 

On  the  level  of  practical  considerations,  bread 
means   life  to   us.     Jesus  sought   to   raise  men's 
thoughts  to  a  higher  level  than  this.     When  He 
urged  them,  saying,  "Take  no  thought  for  your 
life,  what  ye  shall  eat,"  He  added  the  profound 
and  important  dictum  :  "  The  life  is  more  than  the 
meat."     This  more  is  not  merely  more  important ; 
it  means  that  the  meat  is  not  a  sufficient  cause 
to  account   for  the  life  which  it  sustains.     The 
meat  seems  to  touch  and  feed  the  life  directly  ; 
but  no — -man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone.     Some- 
thing else  comes  in  between  the  bread  and  the 
life — something  without  which  it  could  not  feed 
the  life  of  man.     What  is  that.-*     It  is  the  ivord 
of  God.     It    is    true,    in    ordinary    life,    that    we 
do   not   live    by   bread  alone,   but  by  bread  plus 
the  word  of  God,  which  makes  it  efficacious  for 
the    sustenance   and    increase   of  our   life.     Our 
complex  physical  frame,  with   all   its   mysterious 
chemistry  and  mechanism,  is  the  product  of  the 
word   of   God,   and   is   maintained   by   the   word 
that  continually   proceedeth   out  of  His   mouth. 
His  word  is  our  life;   and,  in  everyday  feeding, 
the  life  is  more  than  the  meat. 

In  the  pitifully  common  experience  of  disease 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  95 

we  see  plainly  that  man  does  not  live  by  bread 
alone.  In  diseased  conditions,  the  life  is  there, 
and  the  bread  is  there ;  but  the  bread  may  be 
useless  for  sustaining  the  life.  The  health-givino- 
word  of  God,  which  was  so  abundantly  in  Jesus, 
is  wanting :  without  that  word  there  is  no  link 
between  bread  and  life. 

Our  Lord's  dictum,  "The  life  is  more  than 
the  meat,"  may  be  read  as  a  commentary  on 
His  quotation  :  "  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone."  Israel  proved  this  in  the  wilderness ; 
and  if  we  will  but  see  it,  we  prove  it  every  day  : 
we  live  by  the  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  God.  To  know  this  dependence  is  to 
learn  one  great  lesson  of  godliness ;  and  to  em- 
brace it  cordially  is  to  find  that  contentment  which, 
with  godliness,  is  the  greatest  of  all  gains. 

The  answer,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God,  has  a  greatness  which  not 
only  meets  the  varied  aspects  of  the  Tempter's 
guile  as  these  concerned  the  immediate  situation 
and  circumstances  of  Jesus, — it  has  a  meaning 
that  reaches  far  beyond  these,  and  contains  an 
essential  part  of  spiritual  truth.  Man's  life,  it 
says,  is  found  in  union  with  God ;  and  for  bread, 
that  life   requires   Divine  truth,  which   must    be 


96  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

received  in  a  spirit  of  acquiescence,  by  a  heart  in 
harmony  with  the  Divine  will.  This  is  the  life 
of  filial  obedience ;  and  it  was  to  be  exemplified 
in  Him  who  came  to  fulfil  all  righteousness. 
Gifted  He  was  with  miraculous  power,  but  its 
purpose  was  definite.  It  was  not  meant  to 
minister  to  His  own  wants,  and  never  could  be 
used  to  procure  release  from  suffering  or  escape 
from  difiiculty.  He  saved  others ;  Himself  He 
might  not  save.  Therefore,  though  the  Tempter's 
suggestion  was  plausible  and  very  attractive,  the 
Lord's  pure  heart  and  calm  eye  detected  its  hidden 
guile ;  and  He  answered  it  with  a  reference  to  prin- 
ciples that  guided  Him  and  must  also  control  us. 
These  Wilderness  Temptations  are  indeed  typical 
ones.  They  are  understandable  by  us  ;  and  more, 
they  are  such  as  we  share.  And  often  Satan 
addresses  wiles  to  our  mind  and  in  our  circum- 
stances that  are  like  those  Jesus  tells  us  of;  and 
these  must  be  met  with  the  same  weapons  of 
Truth  that  He  used  to  disarm  the  Tempter  of 
his  power. 

The  toils  with  which  Satan  beset  Jesus,  alike 
in  the  Wilderness  and  in  His  ministry,  are  still  the 
snares  with  which  he  would  entangle  the  Church 
of  Christ  in  the  world.  This  is  true,  on  the  large 
lines  of  human  policy. 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  97 

The  world  is  still  hungry;  and  there  is  set  before 
us  the  temptation  to  deal  with  hunger  rather  than 
with  sin.  This  is  a  latter-day  temptation,  belong- 
ing to  this  age  of  much  philanthropic  endeavour  ; 
and  many  are  ensnared  by  it.  Its  error  is  to 
look  to  economic  and  social  reforms  for  results 
that  can  only  come  by  spiritual  means.  There 
are  many,  to-day,  who  have  a  zeal  for  good  which 
is  not  according  to  Gospel  knowledge.  They 
have  a  great  hope  in  Acts  of  Parliament ;  or,  it 
may  be,  in  Trades  Unions  for  the  protection  of 
wage-earners ;  or  in  education  and  the  diffusion 
of  culture.  The  cheapness  of  bread  is  more 
important  to  them  than  the  "  free  course "  of 
God's  word.  Realising  the  evils  of  poverty  and 
all  misery,  they  set  themselves  with  a  great  direct- 
ness to  their  alleviation. 

We  know  that  all  just  laws  and  all  kindness 
and  true  charity  are  the  will  of  Christ.  But  we 
must  know  and  remember  that  the  world  might 
be  nothing  the  better,  but  rather  grow  worse, 
though  the  very  stones  of  our  streets  were  turned 
to  bread  to  feed  men's  hunger.  Social  reforms 
in  themselves  may  be  good ;  dy  themselves  they 
can  be  no  more  than  superficial.  They  are 
pleasant  unguents,  that  do  but  lightly  heal  a 
wound  that  festers  deep  below  the  surface.  At 
7 


98  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

the  root  of  every  social  sore  is  sin.  And  sin  is  a 
moral  disorder  which  has  a  spiritual  source,  and 
which  must  be  dealt  with  by  spiritual  means. 
To  every  sound  scheme  for  social  improvement 
and  every  philanthropic  enterprise  the  Church  of 
Christ  is  bound  to  give  her  support  in  the  name 
of  the  good  Physician  and  the  God  of  Love. 
To  all  beneficent  and  reformative  legislation  let 
her  lend  her  influence  in  the  name  of  the  God  of 
Righteousness  and  the  Prince  of  Peace.  But 
these  things  are  not  her  first  concern :  their 
advancement  is  not  her  mission,  by  whose  success 
or  failure  she  must  stand  or  fall.  That  concerns 
the  individual  hearts  of  men  in  their  personal 
relation  with  the  Spirit  of  God  and  His  word. 
In  this,  the  message  of  Salvation  is  one  that  goes 
to  the  heart  of  every  wrong  the  world  knows,  and 
to  the  source  of  every  woe  she  suffers.  The 
strongholds  of  injustice  it  does  not  assail  with 
the  strength  of  present  judgment ;  the  bars  of 
hungry  slavery  it  does  not  unlock  with  the  key 
of  Reform.  But  it  undermines  the  foundations  of 
sin,  upon  which  every  wrong  is  based  ;  and  though 
meanwhile  it  has  no  word  for  many  a  hardship, 
one  day  even  the  great  world-snare  of  Hunger 
shall  be  broken.  Yet  not  by  force,  nor  by  law  ; 
but  by  love. 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  99 

Not  only  are  we  tempted  to  err  in  the  large 
matters  affecting  policy  and  the  lines  of  conduct 
in  Church  and  State, — we  stand  where  Jesus 
stood  in  the  Wilderness  when,  in  our  personal 
experience,  we  meet  the  inducement  to  sacrifice 
moral  and  spiritual  obligation  for  the  sake  of 
material  gain  or  for  any  alleviation  of  physical 
straits.  It  was  to  such  a  sin  that  Jesus  was 
tempted  when  He  was  hungry,  and  might  have 
eaten  save  for  the  restraints  that  God  had  laid 
upon  Him  in  His  mission  to  mankind,  and  which 
He  accepted  as  one  born  under  the  law  of  God, 
and  subject  to  the  burdens  of  Humanity. 

When  Jesus  says,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alojie,  bread  is  the  symbol  of  physical  life  and  all 
its  accessories.  These  are  not  all,  says  Jesus. 
Though  a  man  have  them  to  the  full,  yet  he  does 
not  fully  live  on  that  account.  "  A  man's  life 
consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  thingrs 
which  he  possesseth."^  The  beasts  live  by 
bread  alone,  because  they  have  only  lower  wants 
to  be  satisfied.  Man  needs  bread,  but  not  bread 
alone :  his  higher  life,  his  moral  and  spiritual 
nature  and  capacities,  must  be  provided  for ;  their 
needs  have  an  importance  which  is  far  greater 
than   that   of  any   mere    physical    want.      Their 

^  Luke  xii.  15. 


lOO  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

supply  is  the  first  requirement  of  human  life ;  and 
it  must  be  placed  first,  if  that  life  is  to  be  rightly 
lived. 

The  right  arrangement  of  the  order  of  pre- 
cedence of  the  spiritual,  the  moral,  and  the 
physical  levels  of  life  is  the  commonest  require- 
ment of  ordinary  duty.  It  is  the  lack  of  this 
order  that  makes  thieves  and  drunkards  and  all 
unclean  livers  and  misers  ;  also  it  makes  careless 
and  irreligious  folk.  The  thief  puts  the  satisfac- 
tion of  material  possession  above  those  moral 
considerations  that  are  most  jealously  guarded  by 
society  as  necessary  to  its  life.  The  drunkard 
prefers  his  indulgence  to  domestic  duty  and  social 
decency.  Persons  of  unclean  life  are  tersely 
sketched  by  S.  Paul  in  terms  of  this  disordering 
of  the  several  levels  of  human  nature  :  "  Whose 
god  is  their  belly,  and  whose  glory  is  in  their 
shame,  who  mind  earthly  things."^  They  make 
a  religion  of  lust ;  they  have  inverted  the  order 
of  nature  and  religion,  and  pursue  a  course  which 
is  downwards  and  away  from  God,  and  towards 
destruction. 

A  place  above  those  who  thus  disorder  the 
physical  and  moral  levels  of  life  is  occupied  by 
those  who  accept  the  moral   platform  of  human 

*  Phil.  iii.  19. 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  loi 

living  and  observe  the  conventions  and  restraints 
of  common  law,  yet  place  the  physical  life  and 
material  advancement  above  spiritual  interest  and 
oblicration.     The  thief  and  drunkard  and  unclean 

o 

offend  by  pursuing  physical  and  material  inter- 
ests, without  reference  to  spiritual  possibilities 
and  privilege  and  responsibility.  The  sin  is,  in 
essence,  the  same  in  both  cases ;  though  the  one 
class  sins  on  a  lower  level  than  the  other.  The 
lower  class  are  beast-like  in  their  relation  to  the 
physical  elements  and  accessories  of  life.  The 
higher  class  are  human  because  moral,  but  ungod- 
like  because  unspiritual.  Both  classes  deify  the 
body  and  are  deaf  to  the  "  word  which  proceedeth 
out  of  the  mouth  of  God,"  which  is  life  to  the 
soul.  The  true  man,  the  man  that  Jesus  was  and 
that  Jesus  came  to  make  of  others,  is  the  man  to 
whom  and  in  whom  the  spiritual  is  paramount. 
He  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  or  chiefly,  but 
by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God. 

The  example  of  Jesus  when  He  says,  Man 
shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  is  a  dissuasive  from 
any  violation  of  principle  for  a  temporal  advantage. 
That  dishonesty  which  disobeys  the  command- 
ment, "  Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  is  only  one  gross 
form  of  such  sin.     Probably  the   evil    eminence 


102  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

which  that  sin  has  amongst  us  is  owing  to  its 
offence  against  our  neighbour  rather  than  to  its 
disloyalty  towards  God.  But  dishonesty,  which 
violates  human  law,  also  denies  the  providence  of 
God.  There  is  a  will  of  God  which  determines  our 
temporal  circumstances.  Under  that  will  Jesus 
placed  Himself  for  our  example  ;  and,  though  He 
had  power  to  control  His  circumstances,  He 
denied  Himself  its  use  in  order  that  He  miorht 
be  obedient  and  suffer  conditions  which  were  like 
to  our  own,  even  when  these  are  very  hard. 

Our  powers  of  resistance  to  the  grasp  of 
circumstance  are  very  limited.  We  can  hardly 
interfere  at  all  to  alter  materially  the  conditions  in 
which  we  are  placed  by  God.  But  the  deepest 
faults  are  those  of  the  heart  ;  and  in  spirit  we 
yield  to  Satan's  Snare  of  Hunger  when  we  are 
filled  with  worldly  desire  and  calculation  and 
anxiety.  We  are  snared  by  this  world's  stones 
when  we  fail  to  obey  Christ's  injunction,  "  Seek 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness  ;  " 
and  when  we  fail  to  trust  that  promise  with  which 
He  points  to  lower  goods,  "All  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you."^  It  is  the  purpose  of 
God,  in  the  Gospel,  for  every  believing  heart, 
that  He  should  bring  us  forth  of  earth's  shadows 

1  Malt.  vi.  33. 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  103 

into  the  sunshine  of  unclouded  trust ;  that,  amid 
the  snares  of  Satan  and  the  seductions  of  sense, 
we  should  enjoy  the  untrammelled  liberty  of  a 
disembarrassed  faith  ;  that,  whether  in  the  solitary 
wilderness  or  jostling  in  the  city's  crowd,  we  should 
have  an  unencumbered  heart,  ready  always  for 
activity  and  praise.  This  was  life  as  Jesus  knew 
it  when  He  said,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the 
mouth  of  God ;  and  the  knowledge  of  this  life  He 
sends  forward  to  us  in  the  tale  of  His  Temptation 
and  His  victory. 

It  might  seem  as  if  the  super-ordinary  Sonship 
and  power  of  Jesus  to  which  Satan  appealed  were 
an  element  in  His  trial  which  removed  it  from  all 
real  likeness  to  any  temptation  we  can  know. 
But  that  is  not  the  case.  The  super-ordinary 
powers  of  Jesus  were  held  by  Him  from  God,  to 
use  for  the  salvation  of  men.  And  "the  power 
of  God  unto  salvation  "  is  in  the  hand  and  mouth 
of  every  believer.  And  this  greatest  gift  of  God 
to  men  may  be  abused  by  us,  who  hold  it  by  His 
grace.  In  a  deeper  aspect  than  the  surface  shows, 
the  Temptation  of  Jesus  was  less  a  temptation  to 
turn  stones  into  bread  than  one  to  turn  bread  into 
stones.  The  word  which  He  was  tempted  to  use 
for  the  satisfaction  of  His  hunger  was  the  word 


104  'J^HE  TEMFl^ATION  OF  JESUS 

given  Him  to  use  for  the  salvation  of  souls  by 
turning  them  to  God.  Thus  He  was  tempted  to 
spiritual  malversation,  to  the  misappropriation  of 
a  heavenly  inheritance.  And  thus  are  we  also 
tempted  :  to  make  the  spiritual  gifts  of  God,  and 
His  heavenly  grace,  yield  only  a  temporal  satisfac- 
tion. If  we  take  the  love  of  Jesus,  and  His  power, 
and  all  His  salvation  in  the  selfish  hand  of  an 
unhallowed  heart,  if  we  use  these  for  any  lesser 
end  than  His  end,  then  we  ticrn  bread  into  stones. 
There  is  a  great  beauty  in  the  Gospel  ;  but  It 
is  not  meant  merely  to  decorate  our  life  withal. 
There  is  a  wondrous  music  in  the  word  of  love  ; 
but  its  errand  is  not  to  charm  our  ears  and  soothe 
our  mind  and  heart  with  the  sensuous  satisfaction 
of  a  selfish  peace.  There  Is  a  marvellous  wealth 
in  the  heritage  of  those  who  are  the  sons  of  God  ; 
but  it  is  not  theirs  to  make  life  easy  and  opulent, 
nor  to  dignify  it  with  any  proud  nobility.  We 
turn  the  Bread  of  God  Into  the  stones  of  earth 
when  we  take  Christ's  salvation  selfishly ;  and 
when  with  It  we  build  any  temple  which  is  not  for 
the  worship  of  God,  or  furnish  any  chamber  which 
Is  not  for  the  service  of  His  Christ.  If,  as 
Christians,  we  build  with  spiritual  stones  that 
which  Is  not  spiritual,  then  our  own  souls,  and 
those  to  whom  we  should  have  ministered  salvation 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  105 

in  the  name  and  by  the  word  of  God,  are  starved. 
For  we  have  turned  bread  into  stones  when  we 
have  used  the  word  of  God  not  according  to  His 
will ;  and  we  have  been  caught  in  the  snare  of 
the  world's  hunger  for  "  the  meat  that  perisheth." 

The  fact  is,  that  the  sins  of  turning  bread  into 
stones  and  of  turning  stones  into  bread  are  sins 
that  always  go  together  in  those  who  abuse  the 
Gospel  instead  of  using  it.  We  have  seen  that 
Jesus  was  appealed  to  as  God's  Son,  and  tempted 
to  use  the  power  of  His  Sonship  unlawfully.  In  a 
particular  aspect  of  our  experience  we  are  tempted 
in  this  way  too.  The  Tempter's  "If  Thou  be 
God's  Son  "  contains  a  reference  to  the  recent 
Baptism  of  Jesus  and  the  descent  of  the  Spirit 
of  God.  And  there  are  snares  which  beset  us  in 
the  very  hour  of  our  assurance  of  God's  love  and 
of  His  reception  of  us  as  His  sons.  We  are  sons 
of  God  in  Jesus  ;  in  Him  we  have  eternal  life  ;  so 
we  cannot  perish,  says  the  Tempter.  The  very 
stones  of  earth  shall  feed  our  souls,  because  we  are 
the  new-born  sons  of  God :  they  are  not  spiritual, 
indeed,  but  in  our  hands  they  shall  be  changed 
to  such  a  character  that  they  shall  feed  our 
souls. 

In  this  we  are  tempted  to  turn  from  reliance 
on  the  word  of  God  to  dead,  earthly  things,  and 


io6  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

to  take  them  up  with  a  vain  self-confidence  that 
presumptuously  prostitutes  the  grace  of  God.  We 
may  make  stones  into  bread  by  trying  to  feed  our 
hearts  upon  the  things  of  earth.  The  world's 
work  may  replace  the  work  of  God  ;  its  words  may 
silence  God's  word  within  us  ;  its  pleasures  may 
be  used  to  yield  us  satisfaction  of  the  empty  need 
that  only  God  Himself  can  fill.  And  so  we  may 
be  starved  in  our  soul  while  fictitiously  fed  upon 
things  that  are  stones  and  not  bread. 

We  are  in  danger  of  this  ;  and  God  is  better 
to  us  than  our  own  heart's  desire  or  asking. 
Many  of  the  disappointments  of  the  Christian's 
life  may  have  this  explanation :  that  he  has 
desired  things  of  this  world  instead  of  spiritual 
gifts,  and  has  asked  stones  instead  of  bread  ;  and 
God  has  denied  him  his  desire  for  temporal  fulness 
or  advancement,  in  order  to  g'ive  him  that  which 
is  of  everlasting  worth.  Even  if  we  ignorantly 
ask  Him  for  stones,  He  will  disappoint  us  with  the 
gift  of  bread.  God,  who  is  the  Author  of  life,  does 
not  ask  us  to  give  life  to  what  is  dead.  Therefore 
let  no  dead  thing  delude  us.  If  the  Tempter  point 
to  earth's  stones,  saying,  Take  them  as  God's  sons 
and  live  by  them,  let  us  turn  from  them,  and  still 
trust  God  and  ask  from  Him.  And,  asking,  we 
shall  receive,  for  "  If  ye  being  evil  know  how  to 


THE  SNARE  OF  HUNGER  107 

give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how  much  more 
shall  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  give  good 
things  to  them  that  ask  Him?  " 

When  Jesus  asserted  that  man  should  live  by 
the  word  of  God,  He  spoke  for  Himself  as  a  man, 
but  also  for  all  men  who  should  come  after  Him. 
When  we  hear  Him  speak  thus,  we  may  hear 
Him  say,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but 
by  Me.  He  who  was  tempted  is  the  Word  of 
God.  When  we  see  Jesus  in  this  Temptation,  we 
not  only  see  a  man  choosing  the  way  of  life  for 
Himself  and  others, — we  see  Him  who  was  the 
Life  opening  the  way  of  life  amid  the  snares  of 
death  ;  Himself  walking  that  way,  that  He  might 
show  it  to  us.  "In  Him  was  life;  and  the  life 
was  the  light  of  men."  By  Him  men  shall  live 
with  a  life  that  bread  cannot  feed,  and  that 
starvation  cannot  touch  that  it  should  die. 


CHAPTER   VII. 
THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION. 


109 


The  Devil  taketh  Him  up  into  the  Holy  City,  and  setteth 
Him  on  a  pinnacle  of  the  Temple,  and  saith  7{nto  Him,  If 
Thou  be  God's  So?i,  cast  Thyself  dow?i:  for  it  is  written, 
He  shall  give  His  angels  charge  concerning  Thee :  afid  in 
their  ha^ids  they  shall  hear  Thee  up,  lest  at  any  time  Thou 
dash  Thy  foot  against  a  stone.  Jesus  said  tinto  him,  It  is 
written  again.  Thou  shall  jwt  tejnpt  the  Lord  thy  God. — 
Matt.  iv.  5-7. 


CHAPTER   VII. 
THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION. 

IN  the  first  of  the  three  recorded  Temptations 
of  Jesus  in  the  Wilderness,  the  Tempter 
appealed  to  our  Lord  on  the  level  of  the  common 
needs  of  Humanity,  which  He  there  suffered  in 
an  exaggerated  degree  owing  to  His  circum- 
stances of  recent  strain  and  present  great  exhaus- 
tion. In  that  Snare  of  Hunger  our  Lord's  whole 
state  and  surroundings  have  been  made  to  speak 
a  powerful  inducement  towards  an  unlawful  act. 
And  that  appeal  has  been  resisted  and  turned 
into  an  occasion  of  witness  to  that  higher  life 
which  is  beyond  the  need  of  bread  and  is  sus- 
tained by  every  word  of  God.  The  occasion  and 
materials  of  that  Temptation  were  within  Jesus 
and  around  Him  as  He  stood,  hungry  and  faint, 
in  the  Wilderness  of  stones. 

The  second  Temptation  is  very  different 
from  the  one  preceding  it.  It  is  a  mark  of  the 
Tempter's  art,  that  he  embarrasses  the  Tempted 


112  THE  TEMFIATION  OF  JESUS 

One  with  a  sudden,  vivid  change  in  the  scene  and 
nature  of  His  appeal.  From  the  Wilderness  he 
takes  Him  to  the  Holy  City,  and,  placing  Him 
on  a  high  point  in  the  Temple  buildings,  invites 
Him  to  throw  Himself  down  from  it,  in  reliance 
on  the  power  of  God  and  on  His  care  to  safe- 
guard Him  from  injury. 

In  the  statement,  "The  Devil  taketh  Him  up 
into  the  Holy  City,"  the  phrase  more  exactly 
rendered  is,  "carries  Him  off;"^  and  it  suggests 
possession  of  our  Lord's  person,  forcibly  used  for 
His  passive  conveyance  from  the  desert  to 
Jerusalem.  The  same  suggestion  is  found  in  the 
phrase  "  setteth  Him"^  on  a  pinnacle,  which 
represents  Jesus  as  passively  at  the  Tempter's 
disposal. 

By  many,  this  has  been  felt  to  be  a  matter  of 
some  difficulty ;  indeed,  it  must  be  such  to  all  who 
read  the  narrative  thoughtfully.  And  it  is  not 
unnatural  that  there  should  be  an  inclination  to 
regard  the  transportation  of  Jesus  as  an  imaginary 
one,  in  which  the  scene  was  vividly  presented  to 
His  imagination  and  will,  as  one  that  He  might 
seek  at  another  time,  after  He  had  left  the  Wilder- 
ness in  the  manner  in  which  He  had  come  to  it. 

^  Trapakafifidvii  airbv. 
2  LOTTrjcriv  avTov. 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    113 

We  ask,  then,  was  our  Lord  carried  really 
and  bodily  to  the  Holy  City?  That  is  the  state- 
ment of  the  Gospel,  simply  taken  ;  and  we  may 
believe  that  He  was.  It  is  contrary  to  all  the 
possibilities  of  everyday  life ;  but  that  need  not 
stumble  us.  We  live  within  a  circle  of  nature, 
where  natural  laws  both  seem  and  are  to  us 
irrefragable.  Many  of  the  laws  of  nature  we 
know  ;  but  even  a  full  knowledge  of  all  nature 
were  not  all  knowledge.  Nature,  as  we  know  it, 
is  but  one  circle  of  the  limitless  whole  over 
which  God  reigns.  We  live  and  move  within 
the  iron  grasp  of  laws  whose  operation  is  in- 
exorable, and  which  to  us  are  necessary ;  but  we 
are  ignorant  of  what  is  beyond  the  circle  we  know 
as  nature.  The  place  we  live  in  is  so  narrow, 
and  the  common  facts  we  deal  with  are  so 
familiar,  that  we  feel  far  too  knowing,  and  are 
prone  to  forget  that  our  knowledge  is  but  a 
spot  of  brightness  encompassed  by  a  vast  ignor- 
ance which  is  dark  to  us,  and  unseen.  God  has 
kindled  a  lamp  in  the  world,  and  within  the  circle 
of  its  rays  lie  our  life  and  work.  Let  us  be 
content  with  the  knowledge  of  our  one  lighted 
room  in  the  great  house  of  God.  Among  the 
things  of  nature  it  contains  there  is  scope  for 
ages   of  extending   search   and  enlarging   sight. 


114  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

But  when  we  turn  round  from  the  work  of  our 
hands  in  the  lamplight  of  nature,  and  see  nothing 
but  darkness,  let  us  know  that  all  around  the 
narrow  limits  of  our  gaze  God  Is,  and  a  law  that 
is  above  our  understanding,  and  a  light  that  is 
not  for  our  eyes.  Even  in  ordinary  experience, 
the  unknown  touches  the  known,  and  as  we 
handle  the  familiar  we  find  the  inscrutable  within 
our  grasp.  Nowhere  is  this  more  marked  than 
in  our  dealing  with  the  facts  of  life.  For  life 
transcends  matter  and  controls  it,  and  the  point 
where  these  touch  is  hid  from  our  searching, 
though  it  be  very  long  and  laboriously  close. 

The  marvel  of  Satan's  transporting  Jesus 
bodily  from  the  Wilderness  to  the  Holy  City  is 
outside  the  bounds  of  what  we  know  as  possible  ; 
but  that  does  not  remove  it  from  the  sphere  of 
fact.  Rather,  it  shows  us  one  glimpse  of  fact  on 
a  level  to  which  our  experience  is  foreign.  It 
exhibits  a  transaction  on  a  plane  to  which  our 
sight  is  unaccustomed.  It  belongs,  so  to  say,  to 
the  realm  of  an  unknown  Fourth  Dimension.  Yet 
this  marvel  well  befits  that  personal  meeting  of 
Satan  with  the  Son  of  God,  which  was  not  all  or 
chiefly  of  nature,  though  its  scene  was  within  the 
bounds  of  nature's  territory.  It  concerns  the 
control  of  matter   and  space  by  spirit  and   life  ; 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    115 

and  it  sets  at  nought  the  notions  we  have  learned 
by  observation. 

In  our  experience,  life  has  only  a  precarious 
hold  on  the  materials  which  are  its  tabernacle 
and  its  tools.  In  a  short-lived  mastery  it  takes 
and  uses  these,  but  on  the  whole  and  in  the  end 
it  is  not  life  that  controls  matter ;  but  matter  con- 
trols life  and  drags  it  down  from  a  brief  victory 
to  the  dire  defeat  of  death.  And  this  we  call 
natural.  To  us  it  is  natural,  and  the  only  thing 
possible.  Yet,  in  a  higher  sense,  it  is  this  accepted 
order  which  is  unnatural.  To  us,  life  shows  itself 
only  in  material  embodiment ;  and  it  shows  itself 
only  enslaved.  This  bondage  of  life  is  the  great 
irony  of  nature.  Nature  is  not  a  sphere  of  life, 
but  a  kingdom  of  death.  This  kingdom,  life 
invades,  and,  in  every  generation,  takes  by  storm 
in  a  fleeting  success ;  and  in  every  generation  life 
suffers  repulse  and  defeat  in  the  inevitable  victory 
of  death. 

Yet,  if  there  be  any  truth  in  religion,  if  any 
strength  in  life,  if  any  life  in  God,  the  reign  of 
death  is  surrounded  by  the  kingdom  of  life.  The 
place  of  matter's  supremacy  is  but  a  gross  island 
in  a  great  sea  of  life — victorious,  endless  life. 
Within  this  island,  life  seems  a  fleeting  illusion  ; 
but  it  is  matter  that  is  the  illusion.     Life  is  real ; 


ii6  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

its  material  oppressor  is  a  figment  of  God's  word, 
created  by  the  impulse  of  His  thought  and  will. 
Life  is  the  very  breath  of  God  Himself,  and  can 
not  be  really  enslaved.  Physical  life,  by  which 
gross  matter  is  vitalised,  is  but  a  phase  of  the 
showing  of  God.  And  all  the  life  and  reality  we 
know  are  no  more  than  episodes  in  a  boundless 
immortality. 

Who  knows  what  matter  is  ?  ^  Who  can  tell 
upon  what  its  strength  is  based  ?  As  we  probe 
the  secrets  of  matter,  its  reality  vanishes.  Inward 
and  inward  we  proceed  from  truculent  matter  to 
ethereal  force ;  and  force  is  the  manifestation  of 
energy  ;  and  all  power  is  the  strength  of  God. 

From  the  spiritual  standpoint,  therefore,  the 
mastery  of  matter  is  grossly  unnatural ;  and  life 
in  this  world  is  a  perverted  dream,  a  nightmare 
in  which  strength  is  enslaved  by  imaginary 
bonds. 

Man,  in  whom  is  the  life  of  God,  though  it 
be  but  a  spark,  has  in  him  the  germ  of  a  final 
supremacy  over  all  material  bondage.  Mean- 
while his  soul  largely  serves  that  body  which  is 
its    instrument.       Where    the    material    body    is, 

^  The  most  recent  answer  to  this  question  is,  "  Matter  repre- 
sents the  absence  of  mass."  It  is  given  in  the  Rede  Lecture  for 
1902  :  On  an  Inversion  of  Ideas  as  to  the  Structure  0/  the  Universe, 
by  Prof.  Osborne  Reynolds,  Owens  College,  Manchester. 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    117 

there  the  soul  is  found  in  its  normal  manifestation 
and  operation.  And  the  body  is  a  piece  of 
nature ;  awkward,  crass,  heavy ;  a  cumbersome 
house  for  a  spiritual  tenant,  withal  that  it  is  so 
wondrous  in  its  mechanism.  Our  mind  can  roam 
with  the  marvellous  speed  of  thought;  but  our 
body  cannot  move  with  any  corresponding  agility. 
Our  wishes  can  compass  the  world  with  a  wider 
movement  than  the  winds,  with  a  swifter  flight 
than  the  lightning  flash.  But  our  body,  the  while, 
sits  dully  still,  or  walks  with  that  clumsy  gait 
which  mocks  the  soaring  aspirations  of  our  fancy 
and  the  strengfth  of  our  eao^er  will. 

This  is  ordinary ;  but  it  is  not  natural,  in  that 
higher  sense  of  nature  which  takes  account  of 
God  and  of  our  kinship  with  Him.  It  ought  to 
be,  that  our  body  can  go  with  our  thoughts,  and 
show  itself  and  work  its  will,  irrespective  of  the 
illusions  of  matter  and  the  cumbrous  conventions 
of  space  and  time.  We  may  hold,  so  far,  with 
the  Theosophists, — believing  that  this  power  is 
latent  in  our  human  nature,  and  that  its  perfec- 
tion is  our  future  heritage, — that  the  day  will 
come,  when  nature,  as  we  know  it,  shall  be  turned 
inside  out  and  upside  down,  and  when  life  shall 
be  no  more  subservient,  but  supreme. 

We  may  see  the  promise  of  this  in  our  Lord's 


ii8  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Resurrection  life.     He  then   did  grasp  and  use 
the  powers  which    are    reserved   for    us   in   our 
completed  redemption.     He  "went  before"  His 
disciples    to    Galilee    by    no   earthly   road.       He 
entered   the   locked    doors    of  the   upper   room. 
He  ascended  into   heaven  in  a  cloud.     And   in 
these  incidents,  and  in  others  like  them,  He  had 
His  own  true  body;  and  His  living  Spirit  used 
it  easily  and  wonderfully,  with  such  a  control  that 
it  was  where  He  willed  to  be,  and  went  with  His 
thoughts  and  appeared.     And  in  this  we  shall  be 
like  Him  when  we  are  admitted  to  the  plane  of 
His    risen    life.       Meanwhile    "  it    doth    not    yet 
appear."       Meanwhile   we    are    caged    and   op- 
pressed   by  nature,    and   we    chafe    with    a   dim 
sense  of  our  servitude  and  a   deep   resentment 
against   its   bonds.     We   have    obscure    hints  of 
these  higher  possibilities,  in  which  what  are  every- 
day impossibilities  emerge  into  a  fugitive  actuality. 
But  we  recognise  such  phenomena  as  abnormal, 
and  stigmatise  them  as  morbid.     Yet  these  things 
have  their  lessons  for  us ;  and  they  are  useful  if 
they  teach  us  a  reverent  knowledge  of  our  ignor- 
ance,   which    is   the   largest    knowledge   we   can 
meanwhile  know. 

In  this  Temptation  we  see  an  unaccustomed 
control  exerted  by  life  upon  matter,  in  which,  at 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    119 

the  bidding  of  a  spiritual  impulse,  Jesus  is  bodily 
transported  to  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  ;  and,  for 
once,  physical  carriage  keeps  pace  with  the 
rapidity  of  thought.  This  super-ordinary  trans- 
portation is  distinctly  and  directly  related  to  the 
character  of  the  Temptation,  to  which  it  forms 
the  prelude.  The  Devil,  having  carried  Jesus 
off  to  the  Holy  City, — in  the  words  of  our  version, 
setteth  Him  on  a  pi7inacle  of  the  Temple,  and 
saiih  unto  Him,  If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God,  cast 
Thyself  down :  for  it  is  written.  He  shall  give  His 
angels  charge  concerning  Thee,  lest  at  any  time 
Thou  dash  Thy  foot  against  a  stone. 

Here,  as  in  the  Snare  of  Hunger,  an  apparently 
simple  proposal  covers  a  complex  plot.  And,  as 
in  the  former  Temptation,  the  first  point  we  notice 
is,  that  Jesus,  the  Son  of  Man,  is  challenged  to 
act  in  His  own  behalf  as  God's  Son.  "Ye  shall 
be  as  gods,"  said  the  Tempter  in  Eden.  Be  as 
God's  Son,  says  the  same  Tempter  in  the  Wilder- 
ness. The  Serpent  in  Eden  offered  a  new  sphere 
of  knowledge ;  Satan  now  invites  to  a  new  realm 
of  experience,  saying  :  Step  safely  from  this  great 
height.  He  proposes  an  excursion  in  the  Fourth 
Dimension. 

We  may  distinguish  two  aspects  in  this  Tempt- 
ation :  the  one  affecting  solely  the  relation  of  Jesus 


I20  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

with  His  Father;  the  other  concerning  also  His 
dealings  with  the  men  whose  lot  He  came  to 
share,  and  whose  souls  He  sought  to  save. 

Addressing  Jesus  in  the  terms,  If  Thoti  be 
God's  Son,  the  Tempter  taunts  Him  with  His 
ungodlike  humiliation.  It  is  the  "  Prince  of  the 
power  of  the  air  "  ^  who  speaks  ;  and  he  has  just 
shown  his  power  in  the  transporting  of  himself 
and  the  object  of  his  wiles  to  the  Holy  City  from 
the  far  Wilderness.  With  that  fact  in  mind,  we 
hear  a  boast  in  his  challenge  :  Cast  Thyself  down. 
If  I  have  brought  Thee  safely  hither,  shall  not  God 
be  able  to  keep  Thee  in  this  short,  swift  flight } 
This  is  a  challenge  not  only  to  Jesus  but  also  to 
God  His  Father,  as  our  Lord  at  once  indicates  in 
His  reply.  He  does  not  dispute  the  possibility 
of  doing  as  the  Tempter  suggests  ;  but  as  in  the 
former  Temptation  He  had  detected  distrust  lurk- 
ing to  betray  Him  in  the  guise  of  confidence,  so 
now  He  finds  presumptuous  rashness  counselled 
in  the  place  of  quiet  trust.  The  Devil  is  guilty  of 
a  monstrous  intrusion  between  Jesus  and  His 
God  ;  and  this  our  Lord  resents  and  repels  in  His 
answer  :    Tko2c  shall  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God. 

In  this  Temptation  the  Devil  makes  Jesus  feel 
f  His  humiliation  as  the  Son  of  Man,  and  tempts 

^  Eph.  ii.  2. 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    121 

Him  to  rebel  as^ainst  the  bondaee  which  His 
Father  has  laid  upon  Him.  Has  He  Godhead  ? 
Why  then  must  God's  Son  walk  ?  To  the  Prince 
of  the  power  of  the  air  it  is  but  a  step  from  the 
Wilderness  to  the  Holy  City — a  swift  flight,  like 
the  flash  of  thought.  Jesus  has  shared  this  even 
now;  may  He  not  show  that  God's  Son  has  a 
power  like  to,  if  not  greater  than,  the  Devil's  ? 
Must  He  with  toilsome  steps  walk  here  and  there 
like  other  men?  Thus  Satan,  in  the  very  hour  of 
his  own  power's  display,  points  the  finger  of  scorn 
at  Godhead  walking  \  and  it  might  be  hard,  even 
for  Jesus,  to  bear  this  insult  to  the  Godhead  which 
His  voluntary  manhood  veiled.  Yet  He  accepts 
it,  and  owns  Himself  a  man,  cribbed  by  the  limits 
of  ordinary  human  experience,  and  confined  by 
the  bounds  of  common  means  of  progress  and  all 
action.  Though  He  be  God's  Son,  He  will  walk 
as  a  man  among  men,  nor  envy  nor  emulate  the 
proud  flight  of  Satan  in  his  princely  power  of  the 
air.  So  He  answers  humbly,  and  quotes  the 
Divine  law,  to  which  as  a  man  He  submits  :  Thou 
shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God. 

Once,  in  His  ministry,  Jesus  made  an  explicit 
reference  to  this  aspect  of  His  life  as  a  man,  in 
which  He  stooped  to  walk, — when  "  there  came 
certain  of  the  Pharisees,  saying  unto  Him,  Get 


122  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

thee  out,  and  depart  hence:  for  Herod  will  kill 
Thee.  And  He  said  unto  them,  Go  ye,  and  tell 
that  fox,  Behold  I  cast  out  devils,  and  I  do 
cures  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  the  third  day 
I  shall  be  perfected.  Nevertheless  I  must  walk 
to-day,  and  to-morrow,  and  the  day  followijig"^ 

In  this,  Jesus  says  that  He  must  walk  till  the 
appointed  end  of  His  mission  ;  and  the  reference 
seems  to  be  to  the  hardships  and  perils  amid 
which  His  footsteps  went,  and  which  He  must 
not  evade,  to  purchase  His  own  comfort  or 
safety  at  the  cost  of  the  fulfilment  of  God's  will. 

Often  during  His  toilsome  ministry  must  this 
Temptation  have  recurred  to  Jesus.  Constantly 
He  was  worn  by  toils  to  which  His  Godhead  was 
superior.  Often  He  was  threatened  by  and  sub- 
ject to  inflictions  which  He  had  the  power  to 
evade.  Yet  through  and  under  all  these  things 
His  Godhead  walked  with  a  submission  and 
humility  which  were  Divine.  And  to  human 
footsteps  He  gave  a  new  great  dignity,  so  that 
intimates  and  enemies  alike  were  abashed  before 
His  august  mien. 

We  may  find  in  the  Gospels  several  occasions 
on  which  Jesus  was  tempted  to  use  His  Divine 
power  and  God's  care,  conveniently  but  in  a  way 

^  Luke  xiii.  31-33. 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    123 

inconsistent  with  the  humiliation  of  His  state. 
When  at  Nazareth  they  would  have  thrown  Him 
over  the  cliff,  "  He,  passing  through  the  midst  of 
them,  went  His  way."  When  they  took  up  stones 
to  stone  Him  in  the  Temple  court,  "He  hid 
Himself,  and  so  passed  by."  In  both  of  these 
cases  it  is  emphasised  that  He  went  throttgh  the 
midst  of  His  eneinies ;  and  we  may  take  it  that 
this  means  that  His  escape  was  not  compassed  by 
supernatural  means.  We  see  our  Saviour  subject 
to  the  same  Temptation  when,  in  Gethsemane,  He 
cries,  "  Let  this  cup  pass  from  Me ! "  and  we  see 
the  same  victory  when  He  answers  His  own 
appeal,  saying,  "  Not  My  will,  but  Thine."  And 
next  day  we  hear  the  Tempter's  voice  and  this 
same  Temptation  in  the  mocking  calls  of  those 
who  stood  about  Him  in  His  last  sufferings, 
crying,   "Come  down  from  the  Cross." 

These  things  Jesus  might  have  done  as  Son 
of  God,  but  not  as  the  Saviour  of  men.  This 
Temptation  ceased  to  visit  Him  only  when,  of  His 
own  will,  He  gave  up  the  ghost  and  yielded  Him- 
self to  death.  And,  when  in  His  resurrection  and 
His  appearances  after  it  we  see  Him  outside  the 
limits  and  restraints  of  His  humiliation,  we  see 
Him  use  freely  the  very  powers  of  which  the 
Tempter  here  solicits  the  untimely  display.     The 


124  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

leap  to  which  Satan  invited  Jesus  was  thus  a 
greater  than  any  leap  from  the  Temple  ledge  ;  it 
was  a  spiritual  step  from  the  path  of  submission 
and  suffering,  which  He  must  walk  as  a  man  while 
with  the  footsteps  of  Divinity  He  pursued  the 
salvation  of  His  fellow-men. 
^  It  must  always  be  a  question  full  of  mystery 
to  us  :  Of  what  nature  was  the  Divine-human 
consciousness  of  Jesus?  And,  when  we  think  of 
Him  as  tempted,  we  are  apt  not  to  have  a  sense 
of  the  reality  and  severity  of  the  trial  to  which  evil 
might  subject  Him.  But,  in  this  Temptation 
which  is  addressed  to  Him  as  God's  Son,  we  may 
clearly  discern  that  our  Lord  was  subject  to  great 
temptation,  by  very  reason  of  that  consciousness 
which  was  peculiar  to  Him.  By  virtue  of  His 
unbroken  communion,  the  life  of  God  flowed 
without  interruption  into  Him  and  from  Him. 
By  virtue  of  that  Spirit,  which  was  His  without 
measure,  He  had  a  unique  spiritual  control  of  the 
material  world  around  Him.  By  reason  of  His 
sinlessness,  He  could  command  the  power  of 
death,  l^hese  powers  which  were  possessed  by 
Jesus  made  a  wide  endowment,  broadening 
heavenward  while  poised  upon  the  narrow  point 
of  a  human  life.  But  Jesus  left  the  great  wealth 
that  was  His,  in  the  grasp  of  His  Father's  hand  ; 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    125 

and  He  took  nothing  from  its  store,  save  with  the 
sanction  of  His  will  and  the  bidding  of  His  word. 
Thus,  the  poise  of  His  super-ordinary  powers  was 
not  reared  upon  Himself;  for  He  made  Himself 
dependent,  and  all  He  had  was  held  in  all  its 
breadth  and  height  by  the  Hand  which  upholds 
the  heavens  and  the  earth. 

But  for  Jesus  to  step  from  the  Temple  ledge, 
would  have  been  to  dictate  to  Heaven  instead 
of  waiting  its  command.  Such  abandonment  of 
His  dependence  would  have  shifted  the  poise  of 
His  Divinity,  which  was  steadied  by  the  fingers 
of  God  ;  and  His  descent  would  have  cast  down 
the  path  of  salvation  from  life  to  death,  and  the 
shock  of  His  fall  have  shaken  the  throne  of  God 
in  all  the  earth. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION 
—CONTINUED. 


\-2l 


The  Devil  taketh  Him  up  into  the  Holy  City,  and  seiteth 
Him  on  a  pinnacle  of  the  Temple,  and  saith  unto  Him,  If 
Thoti  be  God's  Son,  cast  Thyself  doimi :  for  it  is  writtefi. 
He  shall  give  His  angels  charge  concerning  Thee :  and  in 
their  hands  they  shall  hear  Thee  tip,  lest  at  any  time  Thou 
dash  Thy  foot  against  a  stone.  Jesus  said  unto  him.  It  is 
written  again.  Thou  shall  not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God. — 
Matt.  iv.  5-7. 


133 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION 
—CONTINUED. 

BESIDES  that  aspect  of  this  Temptation, 
which  affects  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  the 
relations  of  our  Lord  with  God  His  Father,  there 
is  another  aspect  which  concerns  the  dealings  of 
Jesus  with  men  in  His  ministry.  That  there  is 
such  a  side,  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  the 
Tempter  took  Jesus  to  the  Holy  City  and  set 
Him  on  the  Temple  ledge.  This  is  not  explained 
in  the  Gospels  ;  but  it  must  have  meaning.  We 
see  that  at  once  if  we  ask  :  Why  was  our  Lord 
taken  there?  If  all  the  Tempter  sought  was  to 
lead  Him  to  tempt  God,  and  try  His  own  powers 
by  a  headlong  leap,  a  precipice  might  surely  have 
been  found  in  the  desert.  We  have  already  seen 
that  the  exhibition  of  Satan's  power  in  the  trans- 
portation to  Jerusalem  was  itself  a  part  of  the 
challenge  in  which  our  Saviour  was  tempted  to 
cast  Himself  down;  and  we  may  judge  that  the 
9 


130  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Holy  City  was  sought  for  the  sake  of  publicity. 
Some  have  found  the  place  where  Jesus  was  set 
by  Satan,  in  the  summit  of  the  central  part  of  the 
Temple ;  others,  again,  on  Solomon's  porch,  or 
the  o-roa  ySacrtXtK-rJ.  Both  of  these  latter  were  at 
top  of  a  precipice,  and  the  giddy  downlook  from 
Solomon's  porch  is  described  in  impressive  terms 
by  Josephus.^  But  since  we  judge  that  it  was 
with  a  view  to  publicity  that  Satan  had  brought 
Jesus  to  Jerusalem,  and  in  Jerusalem  to  the 
Temple,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  place  where  he 
set  Him  was  one  that  overlooked  the  Temple 
court. 

It  is  no  leap  into  obscurity  that  is  proposed 
to  Christ.  The  time  for  His  entry  on  His 
ministry  is  near.  The  Forerunner  has  caught 
the  ear  of  the  whole  land.  All  men  are  awake, 
looking  with  expectation  for  the  coming  of 
Messiah.  And  here  is  suggested  to  our  Lord 
a  startling  mode  of  entry  on  His  public  work. 
Malachi  had  prophesied  :  "  Behold,  I  will  send 
My  messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare  the  way  for 
Me  :  and  the  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  s/ia//  suddenly 
come  to  His  Temple''  The  first  part  of  this  pre- 
diction was  already  fulfilled,  and  being  daily 
fulfilled  :  the  Tempter  proposes  a  literal  fulfilment 

^  See  Appendix,  III.  p.  224  :  to  7rr€/3i;yiov  tow  U/dov, 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    131 

of  the  latter  part — a  grand  entry  into  the  Holy 
City  and  the  Temple ;  a  sudden,  safe  descent  into 
the  midst  of  the  astonished  and  admiring  crowd 
that  filled  the  Temple  court ;  a  striking  and  un- 
mistakable exhibition  of  Divine  power ;  an  in- 
controvertible assertion  of  Divine  origin  and 
commission.  What  more  appropriate  and  effect- 
ive beginning  of  His  public  ministry  could  be 
proposed  than  that  Messiah  should  so  alight,  as 
if  from  heaven  direct,  and  out  of  a  supernal 
chariot  ? 

In  this  view,  we  see  our  Lord  tempted  to 
indulge  in  a  spectacular  effect  which  He  would 
have  none  of.  His  lowly,  natural  human  birth 
was  the  entrance  God  chose  for  Jesus  to  the 
world.  His  Baptism,  along  with  those  who 
sought  to  "fulfil  righteousness,"  was  the  entry 
He  Himself  chose  to  His  ministry.  These  have 
ofiven  us  the  Saviour  who  is  near  to  us,  while 
close  to  God  ;  round  them  have  gathered  count- 
less reverent  associations  of  faith's  endearment. 
Compare  with  them  the  Tempter's  gaudy  project ! 
He  would  have  annulled  their  holy  simplicity, 
and  would  have  led  Jesus  forth  as  a  supernatural 
acrobat.  The  scene,  as  we  imagine  it,  could  be 
portrayed  on  no  page  of  our  Gospels.  It  is  like 
a  woodcut  from  a  mediaeval  book  of  magic.     In 


132  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

His  reply,  Thou  shall  nol  lempl,  we  hear  our 
Lord  refuse  to  prostitute  His  Godhead  to  a  use 
which  is  merely  theatrical.  Repeatedly,  during 
His  after  ministry,  He  was  urged  to  show  just 
some  such  "sign"  as  was  now  demanded  by 
Satan ;  but  He  never  lent  Himself  to  thau- 
maturgic  display.  All  His  miracles  served  a 
purpose  of  mercy  to  the  subjects  of  them,  or  were 
instructive  as  large  object-lessons ;  and  He  never 
stooped  to  the  performance  of  a  merely  impressive 
work  of  wonder,  devoid  of  moral  significance  and 
spiritual  aim. 

In  this  Temptation  we  must  distinguish  what 
was  peculiar  in  it,  and  of  particular  application  to 
our  Lord,  from  what  is  of  wider  significance  and 
capable  of  application  to  ourselves.  The  super- 
natural transportation  from  the  desert  to  the  Holy 
City ;  the  giddy  poising  on  the  Temple  ledge ; 
the  descent  proposed  from  thence, — these  were, 
in  a  sense,  accidental  features  of  the  Temptation. 
They  command  our  reverent  interest  ;  and,  so  far 
as  may  be,  we  must  give  them  careful  attention  in 
order  that  we  understand  them.  Yet  they  are  far 
apart  from  circumstances  such  as  ours.  But  our 
Lord's  clear,  short  answer  to  the  Tempter  shows 
that  the  moral  and  spiritual  issues  underlying  the 
Snare  were  simple.    And  the  fact  that  He  couched 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    133 

His  answer  in  the  terms  of  a  command  addressed 
by  God  to  all  who  own  Him  Lord,  means  that 
this  Temptation  was  in  its  essence  such  as  other 
men  might  suffer ;  such  also  as  they  might  meet, 
as  well  as  He,  with  weapons  from  the  common 
armoury  of  faith. 

The  Snare  of  the  Fourth  Dimension  has 
reference  to  a  thing  which  Jesus  in  His  earthly 
life  shared  with  us,  namely,  our  imprisonment 
within  the  bounds  of  material  things,  in  which  the 
temporal  is  seen,  and  the  eternal  hid  from  sight. 

In  our  ordinary  life  and  work  we  accept  the 
limitations  of  physical  existence  without  question 
and  almost  without  thought.  But  when  the  word 
of  God  is  in  our  ears  ;  and  when  faith  in  Him  lifts 
up  the  eyes  of  its  inward  and  imperfect  sight ; 
when  also  the  impulse  of  His  spiritual  law  lays  a 
pressure  to  obedience  on  our  backward  will, — then 
the  material  limitations  of  our  ordinary  life  press 
hard  upon  us.  They  seem  to  contradict  the 
spiritual  with  bold  insolence.  They  drag  down 
our  aspirations.  They  ^all  our  hearts  with  the 
fetters  of  worldly  weakness  and  want.  Whether 
in  the  Temple  court  of  Jerusalem  long  ago,  or  in 
the  streets  of  our  own  town  to-day,  the  earth  is 
the  floor  of  a  prison  to  man.  It  is  hard  and  dark. 
We   cannot   see    through    it,    nor  can    we   pass 


134  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

through  it  to  find  a  gateway  into  largeness  and 
beauty  beyond.  If  a  man  will  cast  himself  down 
upon  the  earth,  he  shall  but  prove  himself  a 
stupid  clod  ;  and  where  he  falls  there  he  shall  lie,  a 
part  of  the  dead  earth  around  him  ;  and  the  height 
from  which  he  may  adventure  shall  measure  the 
height  of  his  folly,  and  not  the  elevation  of  his 
faith.  Thus  the  floor  of  our  prison  is  solid 
beneath  us,  and  strong  with  a  strength  which  is 
deadly  to  resist. 

But  have  we  not  freedom  upwards  in  the 
open  heavens  ?  And  on  every  hand  a  wide  room 
without  walls  ?  Nay !  we  are  tied  down  with 
invisible  bonds  ;  and  if  we  go  far  to  east  or  west, 
we  do  but  make  a  weary  circuit  back  to  the 
narrow  place  from  whence  we  started  forth. 
Thus  are  we  in  prison  ;  and  if  our  sight  can  go 
beyond  our  prison-house,  it  sees  no  thing  that 
points  us  surely  to  the  throne  of  God  whence  His 
law  comes,  or  to  the  light  of  His  presence  which 
is  eternal  truth.  Yet  His  word  of  love  is  in 
our  ears,  and  His  law  of  righteousness  upon  our 
heart.  And  these  are  within  us ;  and  it  is  they 
that  make  us  beat  against  the  hard  pavement  of 
our  life,  and  run  abroad  restlessly  to  find  a  wall 
to  the  world  with  a  door  out  to  heaven.  And 
when  we  strain  our  eyes  to  see  God  afar  in  the 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    135 

heavens,  we  see  nothing  but  that  temporal  which 
alone  can  be  seen. 

It  is  in  such  ways  that  this  Temptation  of  our 
Lord  may  come  upon  us.  If  ReHgion  be  true, 
so  many  things  ought  to  justify  our  faith.  If  we 
be  sons  of  God,  the  spiritual  must  transcend  the 
gross  material.  No  distance  can  be  vast  enough 
to  stay  our  flight  to  the  very  feet  of  God.  No 
darkness  can  hinder  the  sight  of  our  eyes  when 
they  seek  to  His  heart.  If  the  spring  of  His 
eternal  life  be  within  us,  we  hold  within  our- 
selves the  key  that  can  unlock  all  physical  impos- 
sibilities with  the  skill  and  power  of  Him  who 
made  these  barriers  and  set  them  up  between 
the  world  and  heaven. 

Such  feelinors  and  thoughts  are  not  those  of 
submission  and  faith.  When  we  are  tempted  to 
try  God,  the  suggestion  may  come  in  the  language 
of  faith  ;  but  unbelief  may  wear  the  guise  of  a 
great  confidence,  and  rise  within  us  in  an  unholy 
impulse  to  arrogate  to  our  imperfect  selves  the 
high  prerogative  of  perfect  knowledge  and  un- 
hindered power. 

The  control  of  spirit  over  matter  is  a  secret 
that  is  still  kept  from  us  by  God  ;  and  the  power 
of  the  soul  over  its  material  body  is  still  largely 
hid.     God  has  given  us  other  things  to  learn  at 


136  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

present.  We  chafe  for  the  control  of  the  spiritual 
over  material  things  :  but  there  is  something  be- 
tween us  and  that ;  for  now  is  the  time  God  has 
appointed  for  us  to  gain  control  of  the  spiritual 
over  moral  things  and  powers.  It  is  for  this  that 
He  has  placed  us  in  a  certain  school  which  we 
rebelliously  would  call  a  prison.  He  has  chosen 
our  surroundings  and  ordained  their  limits  with 
both  wisdom  and  love.  There  is  a  great  trial  of 
faith  in  the  denseness  and  the  distance  which  shut 
us  off  from  the  powers  that  underlie  nature  and 
transcend  it.  We  must  neither  deny  nor  grudge 
this,  for  it  is  of  God.  When  we  feel  as  if  this  or 
that  ought  to  be,  in  consistency  with  the  demands 
of  faith,  let  us  know  that  what  ought  to  be  shall 
be.  But  as  Jesus  put  first  the  fulfilment  of  all 
righteousness,  so,  in  our  case,  the  moral  necessity 
comes  first.  By  Scripture,  as  well  as  by  reason, 
we  are  promised  a  future  great  enlargement  of 
faculty  and  activity  ;  but  first  we  must  be  morally 
fit  to  grasp  and  hold  and  use  it. 

Though  even  now  we  are  the  sons  of  God, 
"it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be;"  but 
we  shall  be  like  Him,  who  was  tempted  like  as 
we  are,  if  in  Him  we  avoid  the  Tempter's  snare 
and  overcome  his  power.  "It  doth  not  yet 
appear  ; "  meanwhile,  (that  long  meanwhile  of  the 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    137 

patience  of  God  in  which  He  waits  for  our  im- 
provement,) we  cherish  a  faith  in  great,  future 
things  not  yet  revealed ;  and  we  must  already 
be  like  Him  in  a  humble  acceptance  of  the 
conditions  of  God  for  our  temporal  life. 

As  this  Temptation  has  an  aspect  that  con- 
cerned Jesus  towards  God  alone,  and  another 
that  concerned  His  mission  to  men;  as  He  was 
tempted  not  only  to  presumptuous  precipitancy 
but  also  to  display,  so  the  lessons  which  His 
trial  has  for  us  are  susceptible  also  of  this  double 
view. 

The  trial  of  the  Temple  ledge  was  unique ; 
and  the  nearest  analogue  to  it  may  not  be  general 
among  men,  for  perhaps  not  everyone  is  con- 
scious of  the  material  bonds  which  restrain  the 
human  spirit  in  a  subjection  that  may  gall  to 
resentment,  and  a  rebellious  tempting  of  God. 
Yet  there  is  a  lesson  here  for  all ;  for  our  Lord, 
in  His  victorious  reply,  exposes  all  the  tempt- 
ations of  Satan  towards  rashness  and  presumption 
and  prideful  display.     And  these  are  common. 

Often  does  Satan  appear  as  an  angel  of  light 
to  lead  us  out  of  the  path  of  duty  and  safety, 
under  the  pretext  of  trust  in  God.  This  wile 
may  invite  us  to  recklessness  of  any  sort,  and 
to  the  abuse  of  Divine  care  by  trying  to  make  it 


138  THE  TEMFIATION  OF  JESUS 

serve  foolhardiness.  We  may  rush  into  danger, 
praying  for  preservation,  when  our  first  need  is 
pardon.  Such  snares  beset  reHgious  life.  Ex- 
perience abounds  in  spiritual  precipices,  and  we 
have  need  to  walk  warily.  We  say  that  we  are 
sons  of  God  in  Christ,  and  the  Tempter  says  : 
Yea,  and  as  sons  ye  may  have  much  liberty ;  go 
where  you  will,  do  what  you  will,  God  will  keep 
you  from  harm.  Deluded  by  such  sophisms,  we 
have  seen  the  amiable  zeal  of  a  recent  faith 
spoiled  by  the  vapours  of  sin,  which  it  went  into 
and  meant  to  dissipate.  Instead  of  seeking  cir- 
cumstances of  difficulty  that  grace  and  power 
may  abound,  we  must  avoid  danger  whenever 
we  seek  our  Father's  care ;  and  His  answer  may 
come  in  successful  avoidance  rather  than  in 
extrication  or  repair. 

In  His  attitude  of  waiting  dependence,  Jesus 
is  the  perfect  type  of  the  relation  we  are  meant 
to  bear  to  God.  The  secret  of  any  life  and 
power  we  now  have,  or  shall  hereafter  have,  is 
that  dependence  in  which  we  take  what  God 
gives,  and  do  what  He  wills. 

The  promise  quoted  by  the  Tempter^  is  one 
given  to  walkers  for  their  walking.  It  speaks 
of  ways  and  treading  and  trampling ;  and  to  use 
^  Ps.  xci.  11-13. 


THE  SNARE  OF  THE  FOURTH  DIMENSION    139 

its  terms  in  reference  to  a  flying  leap  is  to  pervert 
it.  And  our  progress  to  the  presence  of  God 
and  to  His  ends  is  a  walk.  In  it  we  move  as 
ordinary  men  along  a  common  road.  We  are 
not  borne  on  wings  past  toil,  nor  lifted  up  by 
magic  out  of  straits  and  danger.  When,  there- 
fore, you  are  in  doubt  or  difficulty,  or  harassed 
in  any  wise,  wait :  stand  firm  and  still.  If  you 
are  where  God  put  you,  He  will  meet  you  where 
you  are.  And  if  He  send  you  or  beckon  you 
across  even  very  rough,  hard  discouragements, 
or  through  pressing  perils,  walk  :  go  forward  to 
the  place  He  has  appointed,  and  He  will  guard 
your  way.  Thus  tempt  Him  not ;  but  trust  Him 
and  obey. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE 
WORLD. 


141 


Again,  the  Devil  taketh  Him  up  into  ayi  exceeding  high 
mountain,  and  she^veth  Hijji  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world, 
and  the  glory  of  the?n ;  and  saith  unto  Him,  All  these 
things  will  I  give  Thee,  if  Thou  wilt  fall  down  a7id  wor- 
ship Tne. — Matt.  iv.  8,  9. 

The  Devil,  taking  Him  up  into  an  high  mountain, 
shewed  unto  Him  all  the  kiiigdoms  of  the  world  in  a 
moment  of  time.  And  the  Devil  said  tnito  Him,  All 
this  power  will  I  give  Thee,  and  the  glory  of  them :  for 
that  is  delivered  unto  me;  a7id  to  whomsoever  I  will  I 
give  it.  If  Thou  therefore  wilt  worship  me,  all  shall  be 
Thine. — Luke  iv.  5-7. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE 
WORLD. 


< 


IN  studying  the  Temptations  in  the  Wilder- 
ness, it  may  strike  us  how  apparently  trivial 
the  first  two  are.  In  them  the  issues  of  good 
and  evil  are  hung  upon  such  small  things  as  a 
meal  of  bread  and  a  venturesome  step.  But  we 
may  discern  a  progress  in  these  typical  Tempt- 
ations. First,  in  His  weakness  and  hunger,  Jesus 
is  tempted  to  a  faithless  distrust  of  His  Father's 
care.  The  next  snare  is  laid  to  catch,  not  faith- 
lessness, but  faith.  Jesus  has  refused  to  exert 
His  power  to  make  stones  into  bread,  and  has 
elected  to  depend  quietly  on  God,  even  in 
extreme  distress.  So  Satan  says  :  Thou  wilt  not 
use  Thy  power  ?  then  take  hold  of  God,  and  with 
a  great  trust  compel  Him  to  exert  His  strength 
to  save  Thee  in  this  deadly  leap.  These  earlier 
Temptations,  therefore,  are  snares  of  guile  rather 
than  assaults  of  strength.     And  in  this  they  are 


144  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

like  most  of  the  temptations  to  which  we  are 
exposed ;  for  constantly  do  great  moral  and 
spiritual  issues  hang  upon  trifles,  and  right  and 
wrong  are  guilefully  obscured  in  the  manner  of 
their  presentation  to  our  choice. 

Very  different  from  these  is  the  third  Tempt- 
ation, in  which  the  Devil  taketk  Him  itp  into  an 
exceeding  high  mountain,  and  sheweth  Hi?n  all 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them  ; 
and  saith  unto  Him,  All  these  things  will  I  give 
unto  Thee,  if  Thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  77ie.  "7 

Notice  the  progress  in  the  Devil's  manifesta— > 
tion  of  himself.  First  he  came  as  one  who  shared 
with  Jesus  the  Wilderness  environment  of  stones 
and  hungry  barrenness.  Then  as  one  who  could 
transport  himself  and  Jesus  with  a  flight  as  of 
thought  from  the  desert  to  Jerusalem.  Now 
again  his  personality  enlarges,  and  his  power 
extends  before  our  view.  And  his  role  as 
Tempter  is  altered  correspondingly.  He  was 
first  a  wanderer  in  the  desert ;  then  his  haunts 
were  shown  to  be  as  wide  as  the  land  of  Israel, 
which  should  be  the  scene  of  Jesus'  ministry  ;  and 
now  he  who  had  lately  hovered  on  the  topmost 
places  of  the  Temple  extends  his  flight  to  the 
high  places  of  the  earth,  and,  pointing  to  the 
kingdoms  of  all  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them, 


ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE  WORLD     145 

he   says    to   Jesus,   All  these  things  will  I  give 
Thee,  if  Thou  wilt  fall  down  and  wo7^ship  me. 

In  the  earHer  Temptations,  Satan  had  dared 
Jesus  to  a  display  of  Divine  power.  His  own  and 
His    Father's  ;  and    had  prefaced   his    proposals 
with  an  If  Thou  be  God's  Son  :  now  from  these  \ 
Snares  he  betakes  himself  to  direct  Assault.     This 
change    of  attitude    is    strategical.     The   abrupt 
boldness  of  impious  attack  is  meant  to  bear  down 
opposition  by  sheer  force.     The    Tempted   One 
is    to  be  appalled   into  submission  at   the  same 
time  that  He  is  dazzled  by  a  stupendous  display 
of  the  Tempter's  imperial  power.    To  us  it  seems^^ 
a   cruel   test;    for   Jesus    is    bowed    with    bodily 
weakness  and  the  fatigue  of  prolonged  resistance 
and  the  burden  of  His  impending  ministry.     And 
his  heart  is  beset  by  the  human  longing  for  repose, 
even  if  it  be  in  the  rest  of  defeat.     To  the  eye  of 
the  Tempter,  skilled  in  temptation,  the  manhood 
of  Jesus  seems  about  to  preponderate  and  over- 
balance His  Divinity.    Jesus  has  hitherto  insisted 
on  answering  as  a  man  the  appeals  which  have 
been  addressed  to  Him  as  God's  Son  ;  and  this 
time  the  Tempter  answers  the  implied  rebuke  with 
which  Jesus  has  unmasked  his  wiles.     As  a  man  ^ 
Jesus  is  now  addressed ;  and  with  a  magnificent 
insolence  of  blasphemy  Satan  boasts  to  the  Son  of 


146  THE  TEMPTATIOxN  OF  JESUS 

Man  his  power  over  this  his  kingdom,  the  world. 
Pointing  to  all  of  greatness  and  glory  the  wide 
world  displays,  he  says  :  All  this  is  mine :  it  is 
delivered  unto  me,  and  to  whomsoever  I  will  I  give 
it}  All  these  things  zvill  I  give  Thee,  if  Thotc  wilt 
fall  down  and  ivorship  7ne.  A  moment's  obeisance, 
and  the  world's  rule  in  return ;  and  upon  that  crucial 
moment  is  hung  the  kingship  of  Satan  and  the 
Kingdom  of  God  in  the  world.  The  enormity  of 
the  profaneness  staggers  us  to  contemplate.  Surely 
this  is  a  second  climax  of  Satan's  proud  defiance 
of  God  ;  an  exaggerated  repetition  of  the  sin  that  ^ 
cast  him  out  of  heaven  ?  But  this  is  the  way  in 
which  the  Tempter  turns  from  his  appeals  to  Jesus 
as  the  Son  of  God ;  this  is  how  he  measures  out 
defiant  insolence  to  the  tempted  Son  of  Man. 
Our  Lord's  dignity  of  deliberate  response  is 
roused  to  a  passion  of  indignation  as,  in  tones  of 
powerful  command.  He  replies  :  Get  thee  hence  I 
But  still  He  answers  as  a  man,  and  quotes 
revealed  authority  :  It  is  written,  Thon  shall 
worship  the  Lord  thy  God;  and  Him  only  shall 
thou  serve. 

We  read  that  Satan  took  Jesus  up  into  an 
exceeding  high  mountain,  and  shewed  Him  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them. 

^  Luke  iv.  6. 


ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE  WORLD     147 

We  know  that  there  is  not  in  all  geography  any- 
mountain  commanding  such  a  prospect.  This 
is  how  the  Temptation  was  understood  by  the 
disciples  to  whom  our  Lord  told  it ;  and  it  may 
be  that  this  was  how  it  appeared  to  Jesus 
Himself.  What  we  are  here  told  of  is  a 
miraculous  flash  of  sight,  in  which  Jesus  and  His 
Tempter  surveyed  the  breadth  of  the  world 
and  its  pomp  in  one  dazzling  moment  of  super- 
natural vision.  S.  Luke  indicates  that  the 
prospect  was  not  displayed  to  the  physical  eye, 
when  he  says  that  the  things  Satan  showed  were 
seen  in  a  moment  of  time}  The  human  eye  can 
see  but  little  in  a  moment ;  and  in  presence  of 
a  scene,  if  we  do  not  take  leisure  and  look  from 
point  to  point  with  careful  observation,  we  are 
blind  although  our  eyes  are  open  ;  and  though 
beauty  or  power  be  unveiled  before  us,  we  can 
not  see  their  glory  for  lack  of  time  to  look.  It 
is  the  sight  of  the  mind,  therefore,  of  which  the 
Gospels  tell ;  and  perhaps  of  the  mind,  not 
merely  independent  of  the  eye,  but  untrammelled 
by  the  limits  of  a  material  organ  of  mentation. 
Thus,  in  this  Temptation  we  have  another 
glimpse  of  the  transcendency  of  spirit  over 
matter   and    space   and   time.       And    as,    lately, 

^  Luke  iv.  5. 


148  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Jesus  was  exalted  during  forty  days  and  nights 
of  conflict  so  that  He  was  unconscious  of  the 
passing  of  the  moments  into  hours  and  days  till 
six  long  weeks  had  passed  ;  so,  now,  a  moment 
of  time  is  stretched  so  as  to  contain  a  vision  of 
the  world's  extent  and  an  apprehension  of  the 
greatness  of  its  pomp. 

tl  It  is  impossible  to  see  this  Temptation  rightly, 
if  we  view  it  with  a  narrow  look.  It  was 
necessary,  for  its  presentation  to  Jesus,  that  He 
should  be  shown  the  kingdom  of  the  Devil  in 
the  world.  And  we  must  have  the  same  outlook  ; 
and,  understanding,  we  must  see  the  fact  of  Satan's 
sovereignty  and  the  nature  and  extent  of  his  rule. 
This  Temptation  is  no  mere  snare  in  which  wily 
deception  is  sought  to  be  exercised  upon  our 
Lord.  The  offer  of  Satan  is  evidently  real. 
The  key  to  the  transaction  is  in  the  fact  that,  in 
a  profound  and  most  important  sense,  this  world 
belongs  to  Satan.  This  claim  on  his  part  is 
implied  in  S.  Matthew's  version ;  and  it  is  ex- 
plicitly stated  in  that  of  S.  Luke :  All  this 
power  will  I  give  Thee,  and  the  glory  :  for  that  is 
delivered  unto  me,  and  to  whomsoever  I  will  I  give 
it.  This  is  the  Devil's  assertion,  and  it  is  not 
contradicted  by  our  Lord.  We  may  even  observe 
that  there  is  credited  to  Satan  the  intention  to 


ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE  WORLD     149 

be  accurate ;  for  he  implies  the  supremacy  of 
God  while  asserting  his  own  mastery  in  the 
world  :  that  is  delive7^ed  unto  me. 

Here,  in  very  remarkable  surroundings,  we 
have  a  great  mystery  told,  though  not  explained. 
This  world  in  its  glory  and  power  is  claimed  by 
Satan,  and  his  claim  is  not  disputed,  but  virtually 
recognised.  This  is  an  important  glimpse  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  background  which  lies  behind 
the  life  of  this  world  and  all  its  affairs.  And  not 
only  for  our  understanding  of  this  Temptation, 
but  also  for  our  understanding  of  all  religion,  it  is 
of  immense  importance  that  we  realise  in  some 
measure  what  this  means. 

All   through  Scripture  we  may  find  hints  at 
the    sovereignty   of   Satan    in    the   world.     The 
heart  of  the  Eden  story  is  its  pictorial  represent- 
ation of  his  malignant  triumph  in  the  corruption  of 
humanity  ;  and  this  does  but  picture  and  enforce 
the  fact  that  evil  has  a  foothold  in  the  earth,  and, 
spite  of  God  or  by  His  leave,  stands  unashamed 
and   lords   it    in  the  affairs  of  men.     How  this 
came  to  be,  is  never  discussed  in  Scripture  ;  but 
it  is  of  great  interest  and  meaning  to  have  the 
statement  that  behind  the  sin  of  the  world  is  the 
fact  that  men  are  the  natural  prey  of  evil,  because 
their  home  is  in  the  world,  and  the  world  is  the 


ISO  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

kingdom  of  an  evil  king,  to  whom  is  delivered  Its 
glory  and  power  to  give  them  to  whomsoever  he 
will.  No  doubt,  there  will  always  be  some  inter- 
preters of  Christian  truth  who  prefer  to  take  both 
the  king  and  his  kingship  as  symbolical.  But  that 
does  not  affect  the  essential  truth  of  the  scrip- 
tural regard  of  men  and  their  affairs  in  relation 
to  the  world  and  nature,  though  it  may  lessen 
the  intensity  of  the  personal  apprehension  of  the 
Bible  view. 

If  we  read  the  Old  Testament  in  the  light  of 
this  view,  it  is  the  history  of  God's  attempt  to 
found  a  Theocracy  within  the  realm  of  Satan's 
rule.  But  at  the  time  when  Satan  met  Jesus  in 
the  Wilderness  that  long  endeavour  had  attained 
only  a  small  success,  and  the  Devil's  boast  of 
mastery  was  not  unwarranted.  He  was  still 
king  in  the  world ;  and  that  not  merely  in  name. 
He  was  not  endowed  with  only  a  shadowy  rule, 
whose  interest  was  historical  rather  than  present 
and  practical.  The  power  of  the  kingdoms  was 
in  his  grasp ;  and  their  glory  was  his,  wherewith 
to  dazzle  the  eyes  of  men  and  even  of  the  Son  of 
God.  It  is  in  the  light  of  this  actual  sovereignty 
and  personal  supremacy  of  Satan  that  we  must 
view  this  Temptation  of  Jesus  by  him. 

The  long  endeavour  of  God  to  gain  a  king- 


ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE  WORLD     151 

dom  in  the  world  had,  so  far,  been  frustrated  on 
a  large  scale  by  the  power  of  Satan  within  his 
realm.  But  God  had  not  abandoned  that  en- 
deavour ;  and  now  a  climax  in  His  effort  had 
arrived  ;  and  here  is  His  Son  in  the  nature  of 
humanity,  standing  among  men  in  the  place 
of  their  servitude  to  sin.  By  virtue  of  His 
manhood,  Jesus  is  within  the  area  of  Satan's 
sovereignty ;  and  He  has  come,  not  to  deny 
his  authority  or  dispute  his  reign,  but  to  subvert 
these.  His  purpose  is  confessed  :  to  save  men 
from  the  Devil's  power,  to  destroy  his  works, 
and,  in  the  end,  to  destroy  Satan  himself  and  his 
kingdom  together. 

This  Temptation  shows  the  unveiled  meeting 
of  the  Prince  of  this  world  with  the  Son  of  the 
Eternal  King.  To  Satan,  the  coming  of  Jesus 
was  a  foreign  invasion,  and  His  ministry  an 
incitement  to  rebellion.  And  that  view  is 
perhaps  the  deepest  we  can  have  of  Christ's 
work  on  the  earth.  It  is  apparently  His  own 
view,  underlying  all  His  deeds  and  expressed 
in  many  of  His  words.  Jesus  constantly  in- 
sisted on  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  a  new  and 
foreig'n  thinof  which  He  came  to  bring".  And 
we  may  find  implied  in  this  a  reference  to  the 
Kingdom    of    Satan    which    was    native    to   the 


152  THE  TEMFl^ATION  OF  JESUS 

world.  So,  also,  the  mere  phrase  "  Kingdom 
of  Heaven "  may  be  seen  to  imply  a  contrast 
with  the  kingdom  of  the  world.  \We  remember, 
too,  our  Lord's  emphatic  assertion  :  "  My  king- 
dom is  not  of  this  world."  ^  He  said  this 
pointedly  to  Pilate.  Here  was  the  Wilderness 
Temptation  recurring ;  and  here  it  was  again 
rejected.  He  might  have  had  the  world's 
sovereignty,  but  He  expressly  disowned  and 
refused  it.  We  must  relate  with  this  our  Lord's 
urgency  regarding  the  relinquishment  of  the 
things  of  earth  by  those  who  would  choose 
heaven's  treasure.  And  if  we  ask,  Why  might 
not  the  kingdom  brought  by  Jesus  have  been  at 
once  a  kingdom  of  the  world  and  of  heaven  ? 
the  answer  seems  to  be,  that  this  world  had 
already  a  king,  and  his  were  the  glory  and  power 
of  its  reign  ;  and  men  could  become  subjects  of 
God  only  by  rebelling  against  Satan's  rule.  It 
has  been  held  by  some  that  here  and  now  this 
world  is  hell ;  and  there  is  much  to  be  said  for 
their  contention. 

It  is  a  mystery  to  us,  how  rebellious  Satan 
shoul<;^  have  such  freedom  and  power ;  but  Scrip- 
ture shows,  though  obscurely,  that  there  are 
definite  limits  to  these,  and  that  there  is  reserved 

^  John  xviii.  36. 


ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE  WORLD     153 

for  Satan  and  those  under  him  a  long  delayed 
judgment,  which  shall  be  followed  by  their  final 
doom,  in  which  the  enemies  of  God,  with  their 
works,  shall  be  destroyed.  The  mission  of  Jesus 
was  one  of  rescue.  The  world,  Satan's  kingdom, 
was  involved  in  his  doom  ;  and  the  men  to  whom 
God  had  given  life  from  Himself  were  entangled 
in  the  fatal  toils  of  death.  Therefore  Christ 
came ;  the  strength  and  life  of  God  were  centred 
in  Him.  He  came,  and  He  remained,  free  from 
the  evil  that  severed  men  from  God  and  made 
them  subject  to  Satan.  His  mission  was  to  undo 
the  malignant  work  of  Satan  and  reveal  the 
deadliness  of  sin  ;  and  this  He  did  by  revealing 
the  love  of  God  and  imparting  the  secret  of  His 
life.  And  He  told  the  height  and  wideness  of 
His  supremacy,  and  its  future  vindication  in  a 
judgment  which  must  perish  all  that  is  at  enmity 
with  Him. 

The  errand  of  Jesus  was  to  incite  men  to  a 
revolt  from  Satan  which  should  make  them  freed- 
men  of  heaven ;  to  induce  an  allegiance  to  God 
in  which  they  should  be  His  sons.  Within  the 
very  bounds  of  Satan's  principality  He  would 
create  a  kingdom  of  heaven  peopled  by  a 
spiritual  race  of  God's  sons ;  and  it  was  for 
this  that    He   set    Himself  to   found   a  Church 


154  THE  TExMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

detached    from    those    temporalities  which    were 
the  glory  of   Satan  and    the  instruments  of  his 
malign    power.     These  were   the   husks   of  this 
world,  which  were  grasped  by  the  strong  hand  of 
Satan.     The  kernel  was  men's  hearts;  and  Jesus 
sought  the  living  core,  careless  of  the  husk,  and 
in  many  urgent  words  He  tried  to  teach  men  His 
own  eager  assiduity  regarding  life,  and  His  own 
utter  carelessness  of  the  things  that  in  this  world 
encumber  it.     His  aim  was  to  rob  the  hand  of 
Satan  of  its  living  prey ;  and  He  was  content  to 
leave  in  his  clutch  the  glory  and  power  of  the 
world,  and  that  he  who  was  dead  to  God  should 
carry  these  dead  things  to  his  own  eternal  death. 
For,  the  last  that  we  see  in  Scripture  of  Satan's 
kingdom  is  a  glimpse  of  this  world  perishing  in 
flames ;  and  that  lurid  evening  is  followed  by  the 
morning  of  the  new  day  of  a  new  heaven  and 
earth,  in  which  there  is  no  King  save  God,  and 
no  law  save  love,  and  no  death,  but  only  life. 

We  live  so  much  on  the  surface  of  things  that 
we  are  apt  not  to  realise  that  there  is  an  unseen 
basis  of  our  moral  life,  and  a  hidden  background 
of  the  spiritual  conflict  of  our  toilsome  days. 
There  is  a  depth  in  our  experience  that  we  are 
apt  to  disregard.  In  our  moral  conflict  there  is 
an  intensity  that  is  utterly  disproportioned  to  the 


ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE  WORLD     155 

trifles  it  immediately  concerns.  The  things  that 
test  our  character  are  in  themselves  ridiculously- 
unimportant  ;  yet  round  them  there  turns  an 
immortal  destiny.  This  fateful  undercurrent  of 
our  smooth  and  superficial  life  is  vividly  shown 
in  this  Temptation  ;  there  is  a  battle  being  fought 
around  us  and  by  us,  and  we  need  to  know  it  and 
be  strong  and  fully  armed.  What  is  hid  from 
easy,  careless  eyes  was  plainly  seen  by  Paul,  and 
is  pointed  out  by  him  in  these  remarkable  terms  : 
"Our  wrestling  is  not  against  flesh  and  blood, 
but  against  the  principalities,  against  the  powers, 
against  the  world-rulers  of  this  darkness  ;  against 
the  spiritual  hosts  of  wickedness  in  the  heavenly 
places."^ 

Our  home,  meanwhile,  is  in  the  camp  of 
Satan  ;  but  Jesus  carried  His  war  of  righteousness 
into  the  camp  of  our  enemy,  who  held  us  captive, 
and  thus  we  live  in  the  midst  of  that  strife  in 
which  the  stake  on  Satan's  part  is  the  kingship  of 
the  world,  and  on  our  part  is  the  life  of  our  souls. 

When  the  Devil  met  Jesus  in  the  time  of  His 
Temptation,  the  Wilderness  was,  as  it  were,  the 
frontier  of  his  realm.  There  he  met  the  Divine 
Invader  ;  and  in  this  third  Temptation  we  see  him 
deal  with  Jesus  regarding  the  gigantic  enterprise 

1  Eph.  vi.  i2(R.V.). 


156  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

He  now  essayed.  In  a  moment  of  time,  the  rebel 
king  arrays  himself  in  all  the  glory  and  power  of 
the  kingdoms  of  the  earth.  With  their  splen- 
dour upon  him,  he  speaks  to  Jesus  according  to 
His  own  election,  as  a  man.  But  in  the  Divine 
Man  he  recognises  a  kingly  One,  fit  to  be  King 
of  all  the  world ;  and  that  Kingship  he  offers 
Him.  All  will  I  give  Thee,  if  TJion  wilt  fall 
down  and  worship  me.  In  such  a  greeting,  Satan 
acknowledges  that  the  coming  of  Jesus  means 
ultimate  defeat  for  himself.  There  belongs  to 
Jesus  a  power  which  he  cannot  withstand  ;  and 
its  strength  is  in  this  :  that  He  has  not  done 
homage  to  sin.  All  men  who  have  bowed  to 
wrong  are  the  subjects  of  Satan.  This  Man  is 
not  such.  He  is  free  though  in  the  world  of  sin  ; 
and  He  is  stronger  than  its  kinor.  Therefore 
Satan  seeks  to  buy  Him  over  to  alliance  with 
himself;  and  the  whole  world  with  its  glory  and 
power  is  his  bribe. 

If  Jesus  would  bend  His  heart  towards  Satan 
and  away  from  God,  then  He  too  should  have 
sinned  ;  and  the  forces  of  heaven  which  were  in 
Him  should  be  powerless  against  hell;  and  the 
powers  of  life,  which  were  His  for  death's  de- 
struction, should  be  themselves  cut  off  from  life  ; 
and  the  avenue  of  God,  whose  door  He  opened 


ASSAULT  OF  THE  KING  OF  THE  WORLD     157 

between  heaven  and  earth,  should  be  locked 
behind  Him  so  that  He  could  not  go  back,  and, 
in  a  victory  over  death,  set  wide  that  "open  door 
which  none  can  shut."^  This  was  Satan's  im- 
potent desire ;  and  in  his  bold  bid  of  all  he  had 
in  all  the  world  we  see  the  price  that  he  set  upon 
the  man  Christ  Jesus. 

If  we  miss  here  the  subtlety  which  marks  the 
two  earlier  Temptations,  let  us  not  fail  to  realise 
the  vehement  force  with  which  Jesus  is  now 
assailed.  We  may  be  sure  that  the  sense  of  this 
was  very  real  to  Him,  and  that  its  pressure  was 
hard  to  withstand.  For  the  ministry  of  Jesus 
was  hard  to  His  manhood.  The  way  of  life  for 
men  must  be  for  Him  a  way  of  death;  and  we 
know,  in  our  measure,  how  the  trial  pressed  upon 
Him,  so  that  at  one  time  and  another  He  was 
"sore  amazed,"  and  "troubled"  in  spirit,  and 
"straitened";  and  how  He  cried  out  to  God,  that 
He  might  intervene  to  recall  the  sentence  of  His 
sacrifice.  These  sore  things  were  the  penalty  of 
His  perseverance  in  His  enterprise  of  life,  within 
the  sphere  of  death.  And  He  saw  them  as 
vividly  in  the  Wilderness  as  He  did  in  Geth- 
semane ;  and  there  also  He  accepted  them  as 
really  as  in  the  late  night  of  His  betrayal.     Can 

1  Rev.  iii.  8. 


158  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

we  doubt  that  this  choice  was  hard  in  the  presence 
of  this  world's  Prince  ?  For,  when  He  indignantly 
refused  homage  to  any  but  God,  and  professed 
His  allegiance  to  Heaven,  Jesus  gave  Himself 
over  to  the  fierce  hate  of  Hell  in  the  day  of  its 
power,  and  to  the  cruelty  of  men  who  would  not 
be  saved  from  sin. 


CHAPTER    X. 

UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND 
UNHOLY  ENDS. 


»59 


The  Devil  .  .  .  sheweth  Him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world,  and  the  glory  of  them,;  and  saith  nnio  Him,  All 
these  things  will  I  give  Thee,  if  Thou  wilt  fall  down 
and  worship  me. — Matt.  iv.  8,  9. 


160 


CHAPTER   X. 

UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND 
UNHOLY  ENDS. 

IN  Satan's  claim  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
and  their  power  ^  and  glory  for  his  own,  the 
emphasis  is  on  the  power  and  glory.  And  if  we 
would  understand  the  kingship  of  Satan,  we  must 
think  of  what  the  power  and  glory  of  the  world 
are,  and  how  it  is  that  Satan  can  grasp  and  hold 
these,  so  that  he  is  a  king  within  the  dominions  of 
Almighty  God  while  a  rebel  against  His  law. 

Power  and  glory  are  not  simple  things  ;  also 
they  are  not  absolute,  but  relative.  They  take  all 
their  meaning  from  the  mind  and  heart  that  are 
capable  of  swelling  with  the  sense  of  greatness 
controlled,  and  rising  in  the  pride  of  glory 
possessed. 

There  are  natures  to  which  power  is  non- 
existent save  in   the  form  of  brute  force.     The 

^  Luke  iv.  6,  ■whQxt  power  is  added  to  the  giory  of  S.  Matthew's 
report. 


1 62  THE  TEINIPTATION  OF  JESUS 

beasts  of  the  field  can  have  no  conception  of 
power,  beyond  that  of  strength  for  fight ;  and  it 
is  the  mark  of  beasts  that  have  come  under 
human  control,  that  they  are  subdued  by  a  vague 
sense  of  an  ascendency  in  man  which  is  stronger 
and  more  subtle  than  mere  strength.  They  have 
a  dim  knowledge  of  his  power,  which,  in  its 
rise,  may  be  little  more  than  a  recognition  of 
his  complex  ability  to  inflict  pain  and  devise 
restraints.  The  beasts  are  embarrassed  by  man 
when  they  yield  to  him  ;  we  cannot  credit  them 
with  any  real  sense  of  what  his  power  is.  As 
for  a  sense  of  glory  on  their  part,  the  nearest 
thing  to  it  that  we  can  see  is  that  physical 
exhilaration  which  is  produced  in  some  by  wide 
space  and  free  air  and  bright  light.  In  a  high- 
bred horse,  for  example,  we  may  see  that  animal 
nature  reflects  the  world's  glory  in  the  tingling 
response  of  his  quivering  strength.  The  brutes 
share  the  pulse  of  the  world's  strength  to  the 
full ;  they  are  a  part  of  its  glory,  and  more  or 
less  consciously  enjoy  the  flow  of  its  life.  Also, 
they  are  capable  of  terror  in  the  presence  of 
exceptional  manifestations  of  nature's  forces. 

But  power  and  glory,  in  the  human  sense,  are 
very  different  from  this.  These  are  the  products 
of  conscious  reflection  and  of  moral  considerations. 


UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND  UNHOLY  ENDS  163 

Power  becomes  a  new  thing  when  we  rise  from 
physical  force  to  intellectual  control,  and  to  that 
complicated  ascendency  which  has  its  source  and 
sphere  in  moral  factors  and  conditions.  It  is 
one  great  difference  that  marks  off  civilisation 
from  savagery,  that,  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of 
development,  mere  physical  force  counts  for  less 
and  less ;  and  the  mental  and  moral  bulk  more 
and  more  in  the  sense  of  what  is  great  and 
glorious. 

Yet  the  material  things  of  the  world  are  not 
dropped  out  of  account  by  man  in  his  advance- 
ment. They  are  taken  up  and  transformed  in 
character ;  they  are  grasped  to  be  used  for  ends 
beyond  themselves.  The  problems  of  humanity 
gather  round  the  fact  that  man  lives  a  moral  life 
in  and  through  material  things.  As  his  spirit  is 
clothed  and  conditioned  by  the  body,  so  his 
whole  life  is  clothed  by  the  things  of  the  world. 
These  make  him  what  he  is ;  but  he  in  turn 
makes  the  world.  Its  gold  is  a  new  creation  when 
he  mints  it  into  money ;  for  he  stamps  it  with  a 
new  significance,  which  is  moral  and  legal,  national 
and  social.  So,  also,  the  jewels  of  the  earth 
become  insignia  of  monetary  and  aesthetic  rank  ; 
and  the  common  comforts  and  necessities,  which 
are  first  the  accessories  of  physical  life,  become 


y 


1 64  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

still  more  the  accessories  of  a  life  whose  base  is 
not  physical  but  mental  and  moral,  in  the  sense 
that  all  social  things  are  such. 
/  The  power  and  glory  of  the  world,  as  these 

are  known  to  man,  are  moral,  but  made  out  of 
the  material.  All  riches  and  grandeur  are 
glorified  dust ;  and  honour  and  power  are  subtle 
webs  spun  out  of  man's  heart  and  weaved  round 
his  soul ;  and  they  interlace  each  man's  life  with 
his  fellow's. 

From  this  we  may  see  the  precise  point  at 
which  Satan  can  grasp  the  power  and  glory  of 
the  world,  and  be  a  Prince  in  it  over  men,  even 
while  it  belongs  to  God  the  Creator.  The  king- 
ship of  Satan  is  a  7noral  power  ;  his  power  is  over 
men  who  have  sinned ;  and  when  he  touches  the 
moral  affairs  of  men  and  sways  the  issues  of  right 
and  wrong,  he  touches  the  point  where  power  and 
glory  emerge  from  brute  force  and  common 
matter.  Gold  is  God's  in  the  mine ;  it  may 
become  Satan's  when  it  is  put  into  currency ; 
because,  as  money,  it  is  more  the  creation  of  man 
than  of  God.  The  gems  of  the  earth  are  God's  in 
the  mine  ;  they  are  His  also  in  the  hand  of  the 
innocent  child,  who  delights  in  their  radiance  and 
colour.  But  they  may  become  Satan's  peculiar 
possession  and  instrument  when  they  have  gained 


UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND  UNHOLY  ENDS  165 

the  significance  of  wealth  and  social  display  and 
rivalry.  The  beauty  and  sparkle  which  please 
the  little  child  cannot  debase  him  ;  but  the  same 
lustre  may  kindle  in  the  full-grown  eye  the  light 
of  envious  desire,  and  fill  the  lustful  heart  with 
dull  discontent  or  base  dishonesty.  So  also 
with  shelter  and  food  and  clothing- :  these  are 
good  in  God's  hand,  though  they  are  material 
things  of  this  world  ;  and  they  are  good  in  our 
hand  when  we  take  them  simply,  and  with  thanks 
to  Him  who  gives  us  them.  But  Satan  may  be 
the  architect  of  fortune  to  the  ambitious  man,  who 
seeks,  not  sufficiency  for  want  and  good  works, 
but  that  abundance  which  makes  power  and 
glory.  His  mark  may  be  on  every  stone  of  the 
mansion  that  is  reared  as  a  temple  of  Mammon  ; 
and  the  clothes  that  should  serve  decency  and 
health  may  become  the  livery  of  Satan ;  and 
though  the  table  is  spread  with  the  best  gifts  of 
God  and  uncovered  with  pious  decorum,  the 
sumptuous  meal  may  be,  morally,  an  orgie  of  the 
Devil's  worship. 

It  is  thus  that  Satan  can  claim  and  grasp  the 
power  of  the  world  and  its  glory.  His  hold  on 
men  is  moral ;  and  only  through  sin  can  he  touch 
men  and  their  affairs.  But  power  and  glory  are 
each  a  compound  made  up  of  material  things />/us 


1 66  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

moral  interests ;  and  in  all  the  affairs  of  men 
which  concern  these  Satan  has  a  hold  on  the 
moral  part  of  those  compounds,  the  world's  power 
and  glory ;  and  a  handle  by  which  he  can  turn 
them  to  his  own  use  in  establishing  a  moral  sway, 
which  is  founded  on  the  material  instruments  of 
moral  interests, 
/  In  view  of  this   we   may  discern   the  nature 

of  the  kingship  that  was  offered  to  Jesus  in  the 
third  Temptation. 

The  Assault  of  the  King  of  the  world  was 
made  in  a  Temptation  of  Unhallowed  Means. 
Jesus  came  seeking  a  spiritual  and  moral  king- 
ship which  should  subvert  the  rule  of  Satan 
in  the  world.  The  means  to  that  could  only 
be  moral  and  spiritual ;  but  Satan  sought  to  turn 
Him  aside  to  seek  an  influence  like  his  own  in 
source  and  character.  Jesus  found  Satan  using 
a  long  accustomed  control  of  men's  hearts  by 
means  of  the  medley  of  moral  and  material 
interests  which  go  to  make  up  worldly  power 
and  glory.  He  found  men  holding  to  this 
world's  things  with  strained  hearts  and  tense 
grasp ;  their  moral  nature  bent  down  to  the 
material  objects  of  their  misguided,  eager  desire, 
and  their  interest  so  engrrossed  that  heaven 
had  no  attraction  for  them,  and  things  spiritual 


UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND  UNHOLY  ENDS  167 

no  reality.  This,  He  came  to  reverse.  He  came, 
that  men  might  leave  dead  things  and  cling 
to  life,  and,  instead  of  grovelling  earthwards, 
might  aspire  to  heaven.  His  coming  was  a 
true  epoch  in  the  evolution  of  humanity ;  for 
when  He  came  the  moral  was  in  the  world, 
with  only  the  material  below  it  to  hold  on  to 
or  to  stand  upon.  Jesus  brought  to  light  the 
purely  spiritual,  and  set  it  within  reach  of  men's 
hearts.  Then,  the  moral  was  clearly  set  between 
these  two,  the  material  and  the  spiritual — that 
which  was  lower  than  itself  and  that  which  was 
hipfher.  Thus  the  choice  between  the  world  and 
heaven  was  displayed.  The  project  of  Jesus 
was  to  disentangle  the  entwinement  of  moral  with 
material.  Out  of  that  compound,  earth's  glory. 
He  would  take  the  moral  element  that  men's 
hearts  supplied,  and  wrest  it  from  its  debasing 
partnership,  and  attach  it  to  the  gifts  of  God's 
love  and  His  Spirit  and  life.  Thus  He  would 
make  a  new  union  of  moral  with  spiritual,  in 
which  men  should  be  drawn  up  with  Him  from 
earth  to  heaven,  from  death  to  life,  from  Satan 
to  God. 

It  Is  on  the  threshold  of  this  errand  that 
Satan  assails  Jesus  to  turn  Him  aside  from  His 
purpose.     It  is  therefore  that  he  leads  Him  into 


i68  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

the  sphere  of  earth's  power  and  glory,  and  invites 
Him  to  take  all  that  it  contains,  and  with  that 
to  be  content.  The  choice  put  before  Jesus  is 
the  choice  between  a  spiritual  kingdom  and  a 
kingdom  of  this  world;  and  He  turns  resolutely 
from  the  lower  to  the  higher. 

In  his  offer  of  the  world,  Satan  tempted 
our  Lord  with  the  bait  of  personal  aggrandise- 
ment, to  lead  Him  aside  from  the  salvation  of 
men.  Power  and  glory  were  to  be  His  ;  but 
His  possession  of  them,  so  gained,  could  have 
no  promise  for  the  men  whom  Jesus  came  to 
save.  We  see  the  essential  futility  of  this 
Assault  when  we  realise  that  it  was  an  appeal 
to  a  selfishness  which  was  not  in  Jesus.  His 
mission  was  not  merely  incidentally  self-sacri- 
ficing, but  unselfish  as  the  very  heart  of  God  ; 
and  how  beggarly  does  the  imperial  Devil  look, 
when  we  see  him  with  his  bribe,  beside  the 
humble  Jesus !  Jesus,  who  has  no  thought  for 
Himself,  and  no  wish  for  His  own  things;  who 
for  our  sakes  would  not  be  rich,  but  was  willingly 
poor  that  so  His  help  might  come  to  us ! 

Yet  it  had  been  easy  for  Christ  to  take  the 
world's  kingship  by  means  of  the  power  and 
glory  men  already  loved  ;  and  it  was  a  hard, 
long  task  that  He  faced  :  to  turn  the  affections 


UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND  UNHOLY  ENDS  169 

and  lives  of  men  from  the  earthly  and  dead  to 
heaven  and  God's  truth  and  life.  He  came,  a 
King  and  to  be  a  King  of  men  ;  but,  because  He 
disowned  the  power  and  glory  compounded  by 
Satan  with  sin,  His  Kingship  was  first  denied, 
and  then  sent  out  into  an  unbelieving  world  to 
be  the  subject  of  age-long  debate,  before  it 
finally  shall  win  the  world  to  recognition  of  its 
Lord. 

When  in  response  to  Satan's  offer  Jesus  said, 
Thou  shall  worship  Ihe  Lord,  and  Him  only,  He 
refused  the  attainment  of  sovereignty  in  the 
world  by  any  other  than  the  spiritual  way  of 
God.  It  might  well  be  hard  for  His  manhood 
to  reject  the  easy  way  to  the  world's  throne. 
But  Jesus  was  true  to  His  God  and  true  to  His 
love  for  men  ;  and  temporal  power  and  glory 
were  nothing  to  Him  whose  heart  had  not 
suffered  the  binding  of  their  spell.  In  His 
victorious  reply  He  proved  Himself  a  King,  and 
we  hear  Him  assert  that  freedom  from  Satan 
and  sense  and  sin  which  was  His,  and  which 
belonged  to  no  other  man.  Though  it  was 
man's  birthright,  it  was  a  new  gift  from  Heaven 
with  which  Jesus  was  fully  endowed.  It  was 
this  that  made  Him  the  Saviour  of  mankind  ; 
for  He  brought  this  freedom  in  Himself,  to  share 


I70  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

it  with   all  who  would  receive  the  truth  that  it 
should  make  them  free. 

There  is  a  dramatic  aspect  of  the  Temptations 
of  Jesus,  in  which,  without  detracting  from  the 
reality  and  intensity  with  which  they  affected 
Him  in  the  Wilderness,  we  may  see  in  each  of 
them,  rehearsed  beforehand  in  epitome,  things 
which  were  afterwards  to  be  acted  out  in  the 
larger  scene  of  the  national  ministry  of  Jesus,  and 
which  were  again  to  be  reproduced  in  the 
experience  of  His  followers  and  the  history  of 
His  Church. 

Few  things  are  clearer  in  the  ministry  of 
Jesus  than  the  constant  besetting  of  His  steps  by 
the  Temptation  of  Unhallowed  Means.  In  the 
Wilderness,  Satan  offered  Him  power  and  glory 
in  the  large  and,  as  it  were,  in  the  abstract. 
He  was  tempted  to  pursue  the  unhallowed 
method  of  homage  to  Satan,  and  to  seek  by  that 
means  the  unholy  end  of  an  unspiritual  reign. 
So  represented,  this  choice  was  between  faithful- 
ness to  God  and  frank  blasphemy  against  Him; 
and  there  is  no  indication  as  to  the  way  in 
which  Satan  miorht  Cfive  the  world's  throne  to 
Jesus. 

In  His  ministry,  our  Lord  might  not  again  be 


UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND  UNHOLY  ENDS  171 

subject  to  such  an  unveiled  Assault  as  this  in  the 
Wilderness  is.  But  the  same  Temptation  was 
pressed  closely  home  to  Him  in  His  dealings  with 
the  people  of  Israel  and  their  rulers.  He  was 
met  by  a  mass  of  Messianic  expectation,  which 
would  have  welcomed  His  pretension  to  an 
earthly  throne.  Was  He  not  David's  Son  ? 
Did  He  not  tread  the  courts  of  His  fathers' 
capital  and  walk  throughout  the  borders  of  the 
fair  principality  that  had  been  theirs?  These 
things  Israel  remembered,  and  did  not  let  Him 
forget.  Cherishing  the  traditions  of  an  ancient 
glory,  long  since  dead,  they  fed  upon  these  their 
present  pride  and  their  hate  of  Rome's  oppression 
and  their  hope  of  deliverance.  The  cliffs  of 
Jerusalem  and  her  ancient  stones  ;  the  hills  and 
valleys  of  the  land, — all  had  fingers  that  pointed 
to  the  past,  and  each  a  tongue  that  longed  to 
speak  allegiance  to  a  native  king.  If  Messiah 
would  but  come  and  speak  the  word.  He  should 
be  answered  with  a  loyal  echo  from  every  heart 
in  Israel.  The  throne  of  David  was  empty  ;  and 
if  He  would  claim  it,  every  stone  and  hill  and 
vale  should  be  a  fortress  to  defend  His  right. 
Then  the  glorious  past  might  live  again.  Then 
Jesus,  rapturously  embraced  by  an  enthusiastic 
nation,  might  overthrow  the  iron  rule  of  Rome 


172  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

and  centre  a  world-wide  empire  round  the  little 
Hebrew  state.  There  was  a  kingship  in  Jesus 
that  could  have  accomplished  this  ;  and  the  power 
and  glory  of  such  a  dream  were  Satan's  to  give. 
The  whole  pressure  of  popular  opinion  and 
impulse  was  ready  to  further  Him  if  He  would 
espouse  its  ends.  The  whole  strength  of  world- 
inlluence  were  with  Him  if,  instead  of  a  humble 
walk  to  heavenly  ends,  He  would  choose  a  royal 
progress  to  an  earthly  throne. 

But  the  throne  of  Jesus  was  in  heaven  ;  and 
the  enthronement  that  He  sought  on  earth  should 
be  in  that  bit  of  heaven  which  He  would  have 
in  every  human  heart. 

If  the  Temptations  of  Jesus  were  thus  the 
trials  of  His  ministry  rehearsed  beforehand  in 
an  intense  epitome,  they  were  also  the  tempt- 
ations that  have  beset  His  Church  in  the  ages  of 
her  unworthy  following  in  the  footsteps  of  her 
Lord.  Too  often  the  Church  has  fallen  before 
Satan's  Temptation  of  Unhallowed  Means.  At 
one  time  and  another,  in  a  greater  and  a  less 
deeree,  she  has  been  unfaithful  to  God  and 
given  homage  to  Satan,  and  sought  the  world's 
sovereignty  instead  of  heaven's  kingdom  and 
reward.  We  see  this  on  a  great  scale  and  with 
terrible    effects   in   the   apostasy  of   Rome    from 


UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND  UNHOLY  ENDS  173 

purity  of  faith  and  worship.  The  king  of  this 
world  bought  her  over  to  alliance  with  worldly 
empire,  and  gave  her  a  dominion  which  was 
great  and  wide,  but  unspiritual  in  its  source 
and  character ;  and  the  debasement  of  Roman 
doctrine  and  ritual  and  practice  prove  how 
disastrous  it  was  that  the  Church  failed  to  stand 
where  her  Lord  had  stood  firm  and  prevailed. 

Even  where  Roman  errors  have  been  re- 
canted and  eschewed.  Christian  communities 
have  yielded  to  the  glamour  of  the  glory  of 
the  world.  They  have  pandered  to  riches,  and 
bought  wealth  by  the  sacrifice  of  truth.  They 
have  grasped  influence  by  policy  instead  of 
principle,  and  allowed  temporal  powers  to  usurp 
spiritual  prerogative.  In  these  ways  has  the 
Church  of  Christ  been  tempted  and  drawn  from 
her  heavenward  course.  And  wherever  she  has 
grained  emolument  and  ao-orrandisement  from  the 
world,  not  by  faith  but  by  force  or  by  secular 
law,  she  has  touched  the  sceptre  of  Satan,  and 
fallen  from  her  trust  in  God. 

But,  even  though  she  stumble,  the  Church  of 
Christ  is  led  by  God  ;  and,  though  she  fall,  His 
grace  will  lift  her  up.  For  Jesus  met  the  powers 
of  Satan  and  death  and  hell  on  her  behalf;  and 
in  the  end   His  victory  shall  avail,  and  she  shall 


174  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

share   His  completed  conquest  and   His  perfect 
reign. 

While  faith  and  righteousness  are  always 
simple,  it  is  peculiarly  characteristic  of  tempt- 
ation that  it  is  often  complex.  It  begets  mis- 
conceptions and  creates  misunderstandings.  It 
prevails  amid  a  confusion  which  is  its  own 
atmosphere.  It  may  be  that  the  Temptation  of 
Unhallowed  Means  with  which  Jesus  was  assailed 
was  not  merely  a  simple  bid  for  His  disloyalty 
to  God.  In  another  aspect  we  may  see  in  it  an 
attempt  to  deceive  our  Lord  into  the  thought 
that  He  might  save  the  world  by  grasping  the 
lordship  Satan  offered  Him  ;  that  by  a  seeming 
alliance  with  Satan  He  might  effect  a  world- 
revolt  from  him.  So  viewed,  it  is  a  Temptation 
to  seek,  not  an  unholy  but  a  good  end  by 
Unhallowed  Means.  Then  this  Temptation  is  a 
gigantic  snare,  and  its  flagrant  audacity  is  the 
exposure  of  all  such  snares.  In  these  there  is 
always  present,  whether  hidden  or  displayed,  the 
homage  to  Satan,  which  is  here  an  expressed 
term  of  the  proposal.  Jesus  was  not  misled ; 
and  let  us  learn  and  remember,  that  goodness 
cannot  use  evil  means  without  becoming  evil. 
Thus  the  use  of  evil  means  gives  away  the  power 


UNHALLOWED  MEANS  AND  UNHOLY  ENDS  175 

of  doing  good ;  and,  though  Satan  may  bargain 
to  give  or  accomplish  this  or  that  thing  which  is 
near  our  heart,  we  must  not  deal  with  him ;  for  all 
dealings  are  evil,  that  are  not  dealings  with  good. 
And  Satan  does  not  hold  to  his  bargain  ;  for,  when 
once  evil  means  are  adopted,  his  end  is  gained, 
and  we  are  vassals  subject  to  his  lordship,  and 
without  appeal.  Thus  Unhallowed  Means  lead 
certainly  towards  Unholy  Ends. 


CHAPTER   XL 
FROM  TEMPTATION  TO  SERVICE. 


12 


All  these  things  will  I  give  Thee,  if  Thoic  wilt  fall  down 
and  worship  me.  Then  saith  Jesus  unto  him,  Get  thee  hence, 
Satan  :  for  it  is  written,  Thou  shall  worship  the  Lord  thy 
God,  and  Him  only  shall  thou  serve. — Matt.  iv.  9,  10. 


178 


CHAPTER   XI. 
FROM  TEMPTATION  TO  SERVICE. 

THE  Tempter  showed  Jesus  the  world,  and 
dazzled  the  eyes  of  His  manhood  with  its 
power  and  glory.  We  must  remember  that  our 
Lord  was  a  man,  and  a  young  man,  when  He 
looked  on  what  Satan  displayed.  The  appeal 
of  such  a  vision  to  such  a  mind  as  His  must  have 
been  immense ;  but  its  chief  force  was  not  a 
pressure  in  that  direction  to  which  the  Tempter 
sought  to  turn  Him.  Still,  let  us  see  Jesus  as 
He  looks,  for  the  first  time,  on  the  wide  scene 
of  the  world's  activity  and  feels  the  glow  of  its 
fevered  heart.  He  is  newly  separated  from  the 
retirement  of  His  prolonged  youth.  A  new 
consciousness  of  relation  to  the  world  and  of 
mission  to  it  has  filled  His  mind.  A  peerless 
love  for  men  is  in  His  heart ;  and  along  with  it 
an  impulse  to  join  Himself  to  them  and  to  grasp 
their  affairs  with  His  hand.     In  His  motion  and 

strong  resolve  towards  action,  the  steps  of  Jesus 

179 


i8o  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

have  been  turned  aside  into  the  Wilderness. 
There  He  has  lingered  in  meditation,  stern 
conflict,  long  debate  :  the  exaltation  of  these 
exercises  is  now  passed,  the  last  wiles  of  Satan 
have  been  plied  upon  His  weariness.  The  end 
of  His  sojourn  in  the  Wilderness  is  at  hand ; 
already  His  thoughts  are  turned  towards  the 
world  which  He  is  fain  to  save.  This  is  the 
moment  in  which  Satan  unfolds  the  vision  of 
the  power  and  glory  of  all  the  kingdoms,  and 
presents  himself  as  King  of  the  kings  of  the 
earth. 

While  we  see  those  elements  in  this  Tempt- 
ation which  are  unmatched  in  the  experience  of 
other  men,  we  must  not  fail  to  observe  those 
aspects  in  which  it  comes  nearest  to  ourselves. 
Jesus  in  the  Wilderness  stands  where  all  young 
manhood  stands  —  between  private  youth  and 
mature  responsibility ;  and  He  looks  upon  the 
world  with  high  expectation  and  strong  purpose. 
As  He  looks,  His  regard  contains  all  the  elements 
that  are  purely  natural  and  right  in  the  outlook 
of  a  young  man  who  is  reaching  out  towards  his 
/life-work  in  the  world.  We  are  in  the  world,  and 
we  belong  to  it,  and  it  claims  us.  Yet  in  another 
sense  we  feel  that  the  world  belongs  to  us.  There 
is   an   instinct   of  sovereignty  in  us    that  claims 


FROM  TEMPTATION  TO  SERVICE         i8i 

the  world  for  our  own.  There  is  a  world-hunoer 
which  is  the  passion  of  not  ignoble  spirits ;  it  is 
prone  to  have  wonderful  visions  of  power  and 
glory  seen  in  a  moment  of  time.  The  ambition 
to  be  someone  in  the  world,  and  to  do  something 
in  it  which  shall  leave  an  abiding  mark, — these 
are  not  unworthy  aims ;  and  their  dream  is  hid 
in  many  an  unlikely  breast.  And,  withal,  there 
is  found  in  every  wholesome  heart  the  impulse 
to  claim  its  native  fellowship  with  other  men. 
Wherever  the  heart  of  manhood  goes  out  to  the 
world  in  desire ;  wherever  its  hand  is  reached 
forth  to  the  world's  things  to  grasp  them,  there 
Satan  is  found.  He  stands  beside  us  as  he  stood 
beside  Jesus  ;  his  hand  filled  with  large  offers, 
his  lips  whispering  disloyalty  to  God. 

The  aour  in  w  'lich  we  newly  realise  our 
relation  to  the  world  is  a  dangerous  one,  because 
of  the  pull  it  makes  upon  our  heart  to  draw  it 
away  from  God  and  His  service  and  His  love. 
We  conceive  that,  when  Jesus  was  tempted  in 
the  desert.  His  sense  of  relation  to  the  world 
had  been  recently  enlarged  and  perfected  in  His 
Baptism  ;  and,  viewing  Him  as  a  man  tempted 
by  Satan  in  this  new  sense  and  situation  that 
were  His,  we  may  see  that  one  thing  made  Him 
safe  in  what  is  to  other  men  a  dangerous  crisis. 


1 82  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

He  brought  to  His  Baptism,  and  had  confirmed 
in  it,  a  perfect  sense  of  His  perfect  relation  to 
God  His  Father.  That  made  Him  safe  against 
the  Assault  of  the  King  of  the  world. 

There  is  a  great  meaning  for  us  in  the  fact  of 
those  first  words  that  we  hear  Jesus  say  in  early- 
youth  :  "  My  Father."  The  lesson  is  pointed  by 
the  confirmation  of  His  Sonship  at  Jordan  as 
He  stepped  from  out  of  youth  into  manhood,  and 
went  up  into  the  Wilderness  to  bind  the  burden 
of  His  work  upon  His  willing  heart.  In  our 
humble  distance  from  His  perfectness  we  must 
emulate  the  learning  of  Jesus  which  He  carried 
into  the  Wilderness  and  through  its  ordeal.  Only 
one  thing  can  make  it  safe  for  us  to  meet  the 
world's  king  and  see  the  vision  he  displays, 
and  feel  the  kinship  of  our  hearts  with  the  power 
and  glory  of  the  earth.  That  one  thing  is  to 
know  and  love  God  as  our  Father.  This  is  the 
lesson  of  childhood  and  youth  ;  and  if  we  learn 
it,  its  meaning  has  a  strength  that  is  stronger 
upon  us  than  the  power  of  the  world,  and 
stronger  than  the  pull  which  its  glory  can  exert 
on  our  affections  to  claim  them  and  draw  them 
to  itself. 

We  climb  into  manhood  over  a  hilltop  which 
may  be  a  Pisgah  of  Satan  to  us,  if  our  hearts  are 


FROM  TEMPTATION  TO  SERVICE         183 

not  loyal  to  God.  Our  youth  is  cut  off  from  us 
when  we  pass  the  wilderness  hilltop ;  and  we 
lose  sight  of  the  home  where  we  learned  to  call 
God  our  Father,  when  we  walk  down  the  slope 
that  leads  to  the  plain  where  men  live  and  work. 
Our  need  then  is,  to  take  the  fellowship  of  God  "^ 
with  us,  and  to  carry  His  Kingdom  within  our 
heart. 

/  will  give  thee,  says  Satan,  We  are  always  \/^ 
ready  to  hear  that  word,  and  often  too  willing  to 
welcome  it,  without  enough  scrutiny  of  the  gift's 
moral  quality,  and  of  the  source  it  comes  from  and 
the  conditions  it  brings  along  with  it.  I  will  give 
thee,  said  Satan  to  the  man  Jesus,  using  the 
terms  of  his  constant  appeals  to  men.  Men  are 
so  ready  to  listen  to  this  offer,  because  life  to  the 
ordinary  man  is  so  largely  a  matter  of  getting. 
It  is  a  scramble  in  which  the  man  tries  how 
much  he  can  get.  Men  have  an  instinct  to 
grasp,  a  desire  to  get,  and  a  wish  for  always 
more.  The  unsatisfiedness  of  most  men  is  the 
dominant,  clamant  note  of  their  experience.  The 
love  of  what  we  have  may  be  great ;  the  love 
of  what  we  have  not  may  be  much  greater,  so 
we  are  too  ready  to  listen  to  him  who  says,  / 
will  give  thee.     It  is  round  what  men  love  and 


i84  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

have,  and  still  more  round  what  they  love  and 
have  not,  that  the  world's  battles  rage.  These 
make  the  struggles  of  life,  and  urge  to  its  exer- 
tions. These  also  make  life's  tiredness,  which 
is  very  sore.  We  need  not  listen  to  Satan  when 
he  says  /  will  give  thee,  for,  even  if  he  gave  his 
all,  it  would  not  satisfy  us.  There  is  a  room  in 
every  heart  of  man  which  is  larger  than  all  the 
world  can  fill ;  and,  ignorantly,  men  are  prone  to 
try  and  fill  it  with  the  world.  That  room  is  for 
the  coming  of  God  and  for  the  holding  of  His 
throne  in  the  earth,  which  is  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
He  also  says  /  will  give ;  it  is  one  of  His  words 
in  Christ.  Jesus,  who  refused  to  take  from 
Satan,  took  freely  from  God  ;  and  all  He  took 
was  not  for  Himself  only,  but  for  all  men.  The 
only  /  zuill  give  that  we  need  listen  to  is  the 
promise  of  God.  For  love  of  the  world  He  gave 
His  Son  ;  and  His  whole  life  was  one  great  act 
of  giving.  The  bread  and  the  water  of  life  ;  the 
true  riches  of  the  heart ;  rest  and  peace ;  the 
Spirit  of  God,  who  is  power ;  His  own  glory, 
which  He  will  share  with  His  own, — these  are 
the  gifts  of  Jesus.  He  only  can  fill  our  heart ; 
and  the  riches  and  power  and  glory  that  are 
offered  by  Him,  alone  can  satisfy  our  need. 

When  we  realise  that  the  essence  of  the  Tempt- 


FROM  TEMPTATION  TO  SERVICE         185 

atlon  of  Unhallowed  Means  was  the  inducement 
it  offered  to  Jesus  to  abandon  the  spiritual  for  the 
temporal  and  choose  the  world  instead  of  heaven, 
we  discern  that  the  choice  which  was  set  before 
Him  is  one  that  is  offered  to  us  also  every  day. 
We  have  a  strong  kinship  with  this  world — with 
its  pleasures,  its  petty  busy-ness,  its  sinfulness. 
There  is  a  whole  world  of  truth  in  that  saying  of 
S.  Paul  :  "  Ifourgospel  is  veiled,  it  is  veiled  in  them 
that  are  perishing  :  in  whom  the  god  of  this  world 
hath  blinded  the  minds  of  the  unbelieving."  ^  We 
see  the  god  of  this  world  tempt  Jesus  with  his 
all.  We  in  our  smaller  measure  are  tempted 
with  the  same  things.  They  are  put  before  our 
eyes,  as  S.  Paul's  vivid  picture  has  it,  "  that  the 
light  of  the  gospel  of  the  glory  of  Christ,  who  is 
the  image  of  God,  should  not  dawn  upon  them,"^ 
Let  us  remember  that  these  are  the  things  which 
were  rejected  by  Jesus,  that  we  might  refuse  them 
after  Him. 

It  is  not  only  in  large  things  that  this  tempt- 
ation comes  to  us.  A  small  thino-  close  to  our 
eyes  may  shut  out  all  the  heavens  and  all  the 
light  of  the  sun.  And  so  in  moral  seeinor :  a  trifle 
seized  or  sought  with  passion  "  means  the  whole 
world  "  to  us,  as  we  say ;  and  it  is  the  common 

1  2  Cor.  iv.  3,  4  (R.V.). 


1 86  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

and  contemptible  trifles  that  are  always  within  our 
arm's  length  that  may  hinder  our  sight  of  heaven 
and  of  the  power  and  glory  of  God.  These  may 
suffice  to  tempt  our  homage  to  the  world's  king 
and  away  from  God.  Jesus  was  tempted  with  all 
the  power  and  glory  of  all  the  world  ;  we  may  not 
be  offered  so  much  as  a  few  more  pounds  to  our 
income,  nor  even  so  much  as  a  snatch  advantage 
in  business.  But  constantly  we  are  offered  the 
citizenship  of  the  world  instead  of  the  citizenship 
of  heaven.  And  when  worldly  interests  obtrude 
themselves  and  claim  in  our  affections  the  room  of 
higher  things,  or  when  we  regulate  our  conduct  by 
the  dictates  of  self-interest  instead  of  emulating  the 
unselfishness  of  Jesus,  then,  in  our  small  way,  we 
are  tempted  as  Jesus  was  in  His  great  way.  This 
is  the  struggle  of  our  religious  life  :  to  live  with  our 
hearts  in  heaven  while  our  feet  and  hands  walk  this 
world  and  work  in  it.  Jesus  chose  the  worship  of 
God,  and  espoused  His  service  at  the  hardest ;  and 
out  of  His  experience  of  this  trial  and  decision  He 
asks  the  question  :  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if 
he  shall  <yain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own 
soul  ?  "  He  asks  us,  that  we  should  answer  with 
the  consecration  of  our  hearts  and  the  obedience 
of  our  lives  ungrudgingly  given  to  God.  And 
this  denial  of  self  is  the  way  to  real  control  of  the 


FROM  TEMPTATION  TO  SERVICE         187 

world,  which  comes  by  detachment  from  earth  and 
citizenship  in  heaven. 

When  Jesus  says,  Get  thee  hence,  Satan,  His 
answer  has  a  note  of  command  and  finality  which 
is  absent  from  His  former  words  in  response  to 
the  Tempter.  But  He  still  speaks  as  a  man,  and 
quotes  God's  Law  for  men.  We  must  notice  that, 
as  a  man,  Jesus  uses  the  language  and  tone  of 
command  towards  the  Devil.  Satan's  kingship 
in  the  world  is  not  absolute  or  unlimited.  The 
world  is  his  place  ;  its  things  are  his  possession  ; 
men  are  subject  to  him  in  so  far  as  they  are 
enslaved  by  sin.  But  there  is  in  manhood  the 
capacity  for  mastery  over  evil  and  its  king.  This 
we  see  in  the  manhood  of  Jesus  when  He  bids 
Satan  to  be  gone.  The  power  of  Satan  lies  in 
the  material  influence  which  he  wields  and  in  the 
moral  control  which  he  exerts.  But  the  spirit  of 
man  cannot  be  subject  to  Satan  save  voluntarily, 
by  choice.  The  soul  of  man  is  by  nature  nearer  to 
God  than  to  the  world,  and  it  is  made  for  direct 
subjection  to  Him.  Therefore  this  is  the  right  of 
men  :  to  bid  back  Satan.  The  power  to  command 
the  Tempter  belongs  to  us  all.  It  is  ours  to  exer- 
cise. If  our  spirits  are  subject  to  Satan,  it  is  by 
our  choice,  in  which  we  have  refused  the  sovereignty 


1 88  THE  TEMPl^ATION  OF  JESUS 

of  God  before  we  have  criven  allesfiance  to  His 
enemy.  In  the  close  of  the  recorded  Temptations 
of  Jesus  we  see  the  possible  and  only  right  end  of 
all  our  temptations  :  the  defeat  and  dismissal  of 
the  Tempter.  "  Resist  the  Devil,  and  he  will  flee 
from  you,"  says  S.  James  ;  and  we  may  read  this 
as  a  commentary  on  the  triumphant  close  to  the 
Wilderness  Temptation  of  our  Lord.  This  is  its 
moral  and  application  to  ourselves  in  all  our  case 
and  circumstances.  Resist,  and  the  strength  of 
God  is  ours,  and  His  victory  is  assured. 

//  zs  written,  Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy 
God,  and  Him  only  shalt  thoit  serve.  The  end  of 
the  Temptation  is  a  word  of  God.  This  is  for 
our  example.  If  Satan  have  the  last  word  in 
temptation,  then  he  persists  in  his  strength  and 
urgent  assault.  If  we  have  the  last  word,  that 
may  not  avail  to  silence  and  banish  him.  But 
if  we  give  the  last  word  of  our  conflict  to  the  God 
of  our  help,  then  in  Him  we  are  victorious ;  and 
our  success  is  not  a  snatched  respite,  but  a  lasting 
control,  which  shall  be  ready  for  any  return  of  our 
enemy's  attack. 

The  last  word  of  the  Temptation  of  Jesus  is 
the  first  word  of  God's  Law.  Thou  shalt  ivoi'ship 
the  Lord  thy  God:  it  is  the  First  Commandment, 


FROM  TEMPTATION  TO  SERVICE         189 

which  was  spoken  long  ages  before  to  Israel  in 
the  wilderness.  Him  only  shall  thou  serve  :  when 
Jesus  takes  this  word  to  Himself,  He  embraces 
obedience  and  goes  towards  the  service  which 
He  loves.  The  note  of  this  Law,  which  He  now 
professes  as  His  rule,  is  the  same  as  that  of  His 
words  as  He  came  to  be  baptized  by  John — the 
fulfilment  of  all  righteousness.  Jesus  will  leave 
conflict  for  labour.  After  His  thrice  -  repeated 
profession  of  allegiance,  He  will  go  to  practise 
loyalty.  This  is  the  order  of  life  and  service. 
The  end  of  temptation,  in  which  we  suffer  and 
resist,  is  the  beginning  of  active  obedience  and 
aggressive  work  for  God.  Henceforward  Jesus 
met  temptation  only  in  His  work.  That  is 
where  all  His  followers  ought  to  meet  it — there, 
and  there  only.  We  may  be  blessed  in  the 
temptations  of  preparation  and  of  activity,  but 
hardly  can  we  be  blessed  in  those  of  idleness. 
The  way  of  worship  is  the  way  of  strength.  The 
way  of  activity  is  the  path  of  peace. 

Of  the  three  Temptations  which  are  recorded, 
only  one  was  presented  in  a  scene  and  with 
materials  peculiar  to  the  Wilderness.  This  pic- 
tures what  is  true  in  our  experience. 

There  are  trials  of  the  desert,  such  as  hunger 


ipo  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

and  passion  and  faithlessness.  In  these  we  seem 
left  alone  in  a  want  or  a  peril  to  which  God  has 
abandoned  us. 

There  are  temptations  of  the  temple  top,  in 
which  we  are  invited  not  to  abandon  faith  but 
to  pervert  it,  and  to  abuse  our  privilege  and 
God's  grace.  When  we  are  in  the  place  of  wor- 
ship, let  us  remember  that  up  there  is  the  ledge 
where  Satan  stood  with  Jesus  to  cast  Him 
down.  When  we  are  in  the  streets,  even  of  the 
Holy  City,  the  flight  of  Satan  is  over  us,  and 
his  watchful  eye  can  follow  the  busy  network  of 
our  ways. 

But,  on  the  watch-tower  of  insight  and  in- 
spiration and  wide  outlook,  his  assaults  may  be 
strongest  and  most  bold.  There  we  learn  of  the 
powers  that  rule  in  this  world,  in  all  the  wideness 
of  their  scope  and  the  depth  of  their  foundations. 
There  we  see  the  reins  of  this  world's  power 
gathered  in  the  Tempter's  hand.  The  brightness 
of  the  glory  of  the  world  is  centred  in  the  crown 
that  sits  on  Satan's  brow.  We  are  in  the  midst 
of  the  toils  of  those  things  in  which  he  is  supreme. 
If  there  is  any  earthly  ambition  in  our  heart,  he 
can  fulfil  it ;  if  any  sense  of  greatness  in  our  mind, 
he  is  greater,  and  we  cannot  rise  above  his  power. 
And   God  has  placed    us   in    this   princedom  of 


FROM  TEMPTATION  TO  SERVICE         191 

Satan  :  He  leaves  us  here.  He  has  put  within 
us  that  urgent  spirit  which  was  made  for  mastery 
over  earth's  dead  things.  Can  He  blame  us  if 
we  meet  the  kingly  eye  of  Satan  and  give  him 
the  homage  of  our  inferior  wit  and  strength  ? 
Can  He  judge  us  if  we  touch  the  Sceptre  that 
has  the  only  evident  authority  in  all  the  world  ?         ^ 

Our  case  is  hard.  Our  trial  is  great.  God 
knows  it,  and  pities  us.  It  was  to  meet  this  case 
that  He  sent  Jesus  to  our  help.  He  has  shown 
a  higher  Kingship  than  the  world  could  know,  and 
revealed  a  wider  sovereignty  than  its  breadth  is 
great  enough  to  hold.  Also,  He  showed  a  perfect 
escape  and  victory  when  He  met  those  toils  and 
assaults  which  were  too  subtle  and  too  stronsf  for 
us  to  unravel  and  withstand.  See,  then,  the 
greatness  of  Jesus  in  His  refusal  to  sin.  Look 
on  the  majesty  of  His  humility.  Turn  from  the 
gaudy  lustre  of  Satan  to  see  in  Him  the  beauty 
of  Heaven.  What  are  glory  and  power  compared 
with  purity  and  love  .-*  What  is  the  empire  of  the 
world  when  seen  from  the  throne  of  God,  or  even 
from  the  footstool  of  His  service?  Look  thence 
and  see  the  inheritance  which  was  Christ's  and 
is  ours,  and  which  He  was  tempted  to  barter 
away :  then  know  what  Jesus  did  for  us  in  the 
Wilderness  and  on  the  Cross. 


CHAPTER   XII. 
HORROR  AND  HEALING. 


13 


Then  the  Devil  leaveth  Him  ;  and,  behold,  angels  came  and 
ministered  unto  Him. — Matt.  iv.  ii. 


»<J4 


CHAPTER   XII. 
HORROR  AND  HEALING. 

THE  Temptation  of  Jesus  in  the  Wilderness 
is  full  of  wonder  and  of  meaning  ;  but  it  is 
far  more  full  of  instruction  than  of  mystery.  The 
simplicity  of  the  narrative  marks  its  inspiration 
and  truth.  No  mere  invention  could  have  shown 
that  direct  glance  which  goes  straight  to  the 
moral  and  spiritual  significance  of  Jesus'  conflict, 
unfascinated  by  its  weird  accompaniments.  There 
is  no  savour  of  occultism  here,  nor  any  aspect  of 
mere  wizardry.  The  whole  vein  is  that  of  bald 
fact  and  terrible  reality.  On  this  account,  we 
must  the  more  earnestly  seek  and  grasp  the 
meaning  of  what  is  told  us.  And,  with  this  page 
open  before  us,  we  may  do  so  without  any  fear  of 
being  misled  into  extravagance  by  the  emphasising 
of  details  and  indications.  It  is  for  that  they 
are  given  us ;  and  may  God  give  us  insight  to 
understand  them. 

Remember  the  amazing  trial  to  which  Jesus 

«9S 


196  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

in  His  Temptation  has  been  subjected.  Recall 
His  isolation  and  stern  ecstasy  during  forty  days 
and  forty  nights.  Realise  the  subtlety  of  Satan's 
snares  and  the  strength  of  his  assaults.  See  him 
personally  present  as  a  cunning  counsellor  of  evil, 
and  a  princely  patron  decked  with  the  insignia 
of  a  real  royalty.  See  him  stand  by  Jesus  and 
point  the  Saviour's  hungry  eyes  to  the  water- 
worn  stones  of  the  desert,  in  their  mocking  re- 
semblance to  cakes  of  the  bread  which  He  craved 
for  His  very  life.  Conceive,  again,  the  rapture 
to  the  Temple  ledge,  and  understand  the  fascina- 
tion of  the  giddy  depth  below.  Was  He  merely 
"tempted  like  as  we  are?"  It  shames  us  to  be 
told  that;  so  immeasurably  greater  was  His  trial 
than  ours.  It  seems  greater  than  mortal  frame 
and  nerve  could  bear.  Yet  Jesus  bore  it ;  and 
the  health  of  His  mind  and  the  soundness  of  His 
faith  are  shown  in  the  way  He  could  raise  a 
steady  eye  to  God's  throne,  and  give  to  His 
word  an  undistracted  ear. 

There  is  a  great  meaning  in  the  fact  that  the 
Temptation  story  does  not  end  with  those  words, 
The  Devil  leaveth  Him,  but  goes  on  to  tell  of  the 
coming  of  angels  and  their  ministry.  This  points 
to  the  very  centre  of  our  Lord's  experience  as  it 


HORROR  AND  HEALING  197 

affected  His  humanity,  and  casts  a  ligbt  back  on 
what  has  gone  before. 

That  last  Assault  of  the  Prince  of  the  world 
might  well  have  a  stunning  effect  even  upon 
Jesus.  Its  flash  of  dazzling  revelation  might  tax 
the  balance  even  of  His  super-ordinary  steadiness. 
So,  when  the  challenge  comes,  Fall  down  and 
worship  me,  we  see  Jesus  avert  His  eyes  from  the 
Tempter's  brilliancy ;  and  while  He  says,  Get 
thee  gone,  He  turns  to  God  and  stretches  forth 
His  hands  to  seek  and  claim  the  delivering  grasp 
of  rescue  from  a  fearful  strait.  That  moment  of 
appeal  saw  the  escape  of  Jesus  from  Satan's  im- 
portunities. The  final  incitement  to  treason  so 
stirred  His  loyalty  to  God  that  the  links  that 
bound  Him  to  Heaven  were  drawn  tight  and 
close  in  a  spasm  of  yearning  desire.  His  soul 
reached  out  to  God,  and  His  heart  clave  to  Him. 
It  was  thus  that  the  angels  came.  They  were 
not  sent  to  make  up  any  lack  in  the  power  of 
Jesus  to  resist  in  the  crisis  of  His  trial.  It  was 
simply  that  He  so  recoiled  from  the  induce- 
ments of  Hell,  and  so  sought  the  fellowship  of 
Heaven,  that  the  one  went  and  the  other  came, 
spontaneously  and  of  necessity. 

That  had  been  no  mere  word  which  Jesus  had 
said,  Man   shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by 


198  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  vtoiUh  of 
God.  The  greatest  hunger  of  these  many  days 
had  been  the  hunger  of  His  heart  for  God.  And 
now  it  would  no  longer  be  denied.  It  had  been 
starved  while  the  presence  of  evil,  and  its  conflict, 
preyed  upon  the  vitals  of  His  soul.  And  when 
Satan  said,  Fall  down  and  worship  me,  we  see 
Jesus  turn  away  in  giddy  horror,  lest  His  fainting 
body  should  succumb  and  fall  prone  in  the  mere 
semblance  of  unlawful  homaore.  With  the  last 
strength  of  His  manhood  He  stretched  out  hands 
of  appeal  to  God,  and  sent  to  Heaven  an  urgent 
call  that  the  arm  of  God  would  take  and  hold 
Him. 

So  ofreat  were  the  love  and  desire  that  welled 
up  in  Jesus  towards  His  Father,  and  so  great  the 
response  of  God's  heart  towards  Him,  that  the 
place  where  He  stood  became  heaven  upon 
earth,  while  He  stood  there  held  out  to  God  for 
His  embrace.  He  was  kindred  with  earth,  but 
still  more  closely  kin  to  Heaven.  His  call 
pierced  the  barriers  of  separation  ;  the  interposing 
powers  of  Hell  were  swept  into  an  instant  flight. 
Deep  called  to  deep ;  like  the  flash  of  lightning 
between  thunder-clouds,  the  fellowship  of  God 
rushed  to  meet  the  welcome  of  the  man  Jesus. 
He  claimed  it,  and  in  answer  it  claimed  Him. 


HORROR  AND  HEALING  199 

This  is  what  the  coming  of  the  angels  means  ; 
and  thus  they  came.     The  tide  of  heavenly  love 
that  rose  in  Jesus'  heart  was  met  by  a  great  tide 
of  kindred  love  that  swelled  towards  Him  out  of 
heaven ;  and  these  met  in  a  visible  concourse  of 
angelic  presences  that  gathered  round  the  Man 
who  first  from  earth  had  chosen,  ay,  compelled, 
the  full  fellowship  of  God.     The  angels  did  not 
compass  the  deliverance  of  Jesus ;  nor  did  they 
merely  celebrate  it  in  a  pageant  of  glorious  re- 
joicing.    Their  presence  was  His  victory  in  its 
outward    showing.        In     the    hour    of    Satan's 
majesty   and    insolent    assault,    the    motions    of 
Heaven  were  so  strong  in  Jesus,  that  suddenly 
and   with  great  strength    He  grasped   the  very 
heart  of  Heaven  and  drew  it  to  Himself.     And 
at  once  there  was  not  room  about  Him  for  the 
world's  Prince,  nor  any  place  for  Hell  to  plant 
the  foot  of  insubordination  ao-ainst  God.     When 
Jesus  with  the  gesture  of  His  soul's  command 
S2i\d  Begone,  He  hurtled  Satan  thence.     On  behalf 
of  humanity  He  made  insurrection  from  sin  ;  and 
His  act  was  a  signal  in  all  heaven,  so  that  the 
hosts  of  it  gathered  round  Him  to  celebrate  the 
new  great  warfare  of  the  Son  of  God,  which,  in 
the  end,  should  oust  the  Devil  from  both  earth 
and  heaven. 


200  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

Can  we  believe  that  the  glory  of  Heaven  was 
only  around  Jesus  at  this  time?  Nay!  It  was 
upon  Him  and  in  Him,  and  shone  out  from  Him. 
Long  afterwards,  in  agitated  prayer  to  God  re- 
garding the  trial  of  the  Cross  which  was  before 
Him,  Jesus  was  suddenly  transfigured  in  company 
with  Moses  and  Elias,  and  in  presence  of  a,  well- 
loved  three  of  His  disciples.  And  He  was 
transfigured  now,  amid  that  band  of  bright  angels. 
There  was  no  man  there  to  see  and  tell  of  it ;  and 
Jesus  did  not  tell  such  things.  Yet  we  may  see 
our  Lord  clothed  in  transfigured  radiancy,  and  in 
aspect  not  inferior  to  His  visitants. 

We  see  here  the  triumphant  emergence  of 
Jesus  from  Temptation;  we  see  Him,  by  faith  and 
obedience  and  heavenward  desire,  banish  Hell 
and  summon  the  visible  attendance  of  very 
Heaven.  And  the  way  that  Jesus  found,  out  of 
the  snares  of  sin  and  the  pressure  of  its  strength 
upon  His  weakness,  is  the  one  way  still  that  we 
must  find  and  use  for  our  escape,  I  shall  live  by 
the  word  of  God,  He  said  ;  and  that  we  too  must 
fearlessly  choose  and  trust  for  our  life.  I  will  not 
tempt  the  Lord  My  God,  He  said  ;  and  we  must 
humbly  submit  to  what  is  narrow  and  hard,  fore- 
going all  that  is  not  offered  us  by  God.  I  will 
worship  the  Lord,  and  Him  only  will  I  serve,  said 


HORROR  AND  HEALING  201 

Jesus  ;  and  the  protest  of  His  allegiance  became 
a  cry  for  the  presence  of  His  King.  And  straight- 
way He  found  Himself  in  the  ante-chamber  of 
God's  Majesty,  surrounded  by  His  angels  ;  and 
Satan  was  gone,  and  His  heart  was  embraced  by 
Heaven. 

That  impulsive  entreaty  of  Heaven  which  we 
see  in  Jesus'  heart  as  He  turns  away  from  sin ; 
that  outstretching  of  His  soul  to  God  for  a  fellow- 
ship that  shall  banish  the  enticements  of  evil  and 
its  insolence,  is  what  ought  to  be  in  our  heart  too. 
It  must  be  there,  if  we  are  to  conquer  in  tempt- 
ation with  a  victory  like  our  Lord's.  If  we  fall 
where  He  stood  firm  ;  if  we  falter  where  He  pre- 
vailed, it  is  for  lack  of  that  heavenward  glance 
that  can  catch  the  eye  of  God,  and  that  desire  that 
can  bring  His  presence  to  our  aid  and  disarm  the 
strongest  powers  of  Hell.  Let  us  think.  How 
do  we,  when  we  are  tempted  ?  Our  many  failures 
tell  how  often  we  have  cherished  the  suggestions 
of  evil  instead  of  recoiling  from  them  ;  how  often 
we  have  welcomed  the  offers  of  Satan  when  we 
ought  to  have  rejected  them.  It  is  in  these  ways 
that  failure  comes,  and  the  fall  into  sin.  When 
ensnared  into  treason  against  God,  we  are  willingly 
betraying  and  betrayed.  But  if  at  any  time,  when 
we  are  solicited  by  evil,  we  turn  our  mind    and 


202  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

heart  to  God,  He  gives  a  fellowship  that  Hell 
cannot  abide,  but  is  gone  from  in  dismay.  If  we 
will  but  suffer  the  tide  of  God's  Spirit  to  rise  up 
in  our  heart,  it  shall  swell  till  it  meets  the  ocean 
of  Heaven's  strong  succour,  the  sound  of  whose 
waves  is  victorious  praise ;  and  these,  meeting, 
shall  make  one  full  flood  to  bear  our  spirit  to 
God's  throne.  Thus,  in  our  measure,  we  may 
know  the  experience  of  Jesus  when  His  need  and 
desire  called  Heaven  to  Him,  and  made  a  temple 
of  the  devil-haunted  desert ;  and  we  too  may  find 
the  place  of  our  temptation  prove  to  be  the  ante- 
room of  God. 

We  may  connect  the  need  of  Jesus,  to  which 
the  angels  ministered,  not  only  with  the  great 
strain  of  His  whole  Temptation,  which  was  now 
accumulated  on  Him,  but  specially  with  the 
unnerving  trial  of  that  last  assault  of  the  Prince 
of  the  world.  This  view  may  give  us  some 
practical  suggestions  regarding  phases  of  ex- 
perience, which,  if  they  are  not  common,  yet 
are  frequent  enough  to  require  that  we  be 
prepared  to  understand  them,  in  ourselves  or 
others. 

There  is  a  point  in  the  Temptation,  where  the 
awe  of  Jesus'  conflict  amounts  to  horror.     We  can 


HORROR  AND  HEALING  203 

hardly  read,  without  shuddering,  that  impious 
challenge  of  the  Devil  :  Fall  dowfi  and  worship 
me.  Doubtless,  it  was  this  scene  that  inspired 
those  mediaeval  superstitions  which  said  that  men 
could  sell  their  souls  to  Satan  magically,  and 
gain  thereby  an  occult  power.  The  day  of  that 
ignorance  is  largely  past.  But  still  there  are  some 
who  are  plagued  with  the  horror  of  blasphemy,  and 
suffer  a  sore  agony  of  soul.  When  Satan  received 
permission  to  tempt  Job,  he  said  to  God,  "He 
will  curse  Thee  to  Thy  face  ; "  and  he  used  the 
sufferer's  wife  as  his  mouthpiece  when  she  said, 
"  Curse  God,  and  die."  That  pictures  what  some 
suffer  from  vivid  imagination  in  league  with  un- 
strung nerve.  The  horror  of  this  experience 
consists  in  the  recoil  of  the  heart  from  the  blas- 
phemies which  seem  whispered  in  the  ear,  and 
almost  adopted  in  the  mind.  Its  terror  depends 
upon  the  weakness  and  self-distrust  which,  in  their 
bewilderment,  fear  that  the  evil  thoughts  have 
been  born  of  the  heart's  own  sin,  and  that  the  guilt 
of  them  is  on  the  soul  they  torture.  As  Bunyan, 
in  the  Pilgrims  Progress,  puts  it,  plainly  writing 
from  his  own  experience  of  this  thing :  "  The 
Pilgrim  is  so  confounded  that  he  verily  thinks 
the  grievous  blasphemies  to  be  his  own."  Then 
the  darkness  of  the  valley  Is  around,  and  the  face 


204  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

of  God  is  hid  as  if  behind  a  cloud  of  unpardon- 
able sin. 

The  Evil  one  may  work  upon  our  weakness 
and  our  fear,  to  upset  our  reason  and  our  faith. 
But  Jesus  Himself  was  tempted,  in  like  manner, 
with  suggestions  from  the  very  mouth  of  Hell ; 
and  He  is  with  us  within  the  shadow  of  the 
darkest  cloud  our  mind  or  heart  can  know.  He 
will  lead  us  out  ao^ain  into  the  liofht.  This  is 
a  temptation  of  the  wilderness ;  and  God  may 
send  us  there  to  learn  our  own  weakness  and 
His  strength. 

But  we  must  not  ascribe  such  experiences 
too  readily  or  exclusively  to  a  spiritual  source, 
or  give  them  a  significance  that  is  entirely 
spiritual.  They  may  mean  malady  of  body 
rather  than  of  soul,  and  may  be  more  fitly 
ministered  to  by  medicine  than  by  the  Church. 
The  nervous  and  mental  merge  into  the  spiritual; 
and  these  may  be  confounded  when  there  is 
somewhat  that  is  morbid  in  our  state. 

It  is  significant  that  the  occasion  of  the 
angels'  ministry  to  Jesus  was  not  during  His 
Temptation,  but  after  it.  He  needed  no  angelic 
support  to  enable  Him  to  oppose  and  overcome 
the  Devil.  But  He  did  afterwards  need  recover- 
ing from   strain  and  shock.      And,  in   this,  our 


HORROR  AND  HEALING  205 

experience  is  like  His.  In  the  excitement  of 
conflict  and  decision  we  may  be  strong.  There 
is  health  in  active  exercise  of  soul.  But  there 
is  a  special  pain  and  danger  in  hours  of  reaction 
and  reflection,  when  our  mind  and  feelings  have 
leisure  to  turn  in  upon  ourself.  Our  strife  with 
the  Devil  may  nerve  us  to  courage  and  strength 
while  it  lasts ;  its  passing  may  leave  us  unstrung 
and  full  of  uneasiness  and  fear.  The  inward 
echoes  of  past  conflict  may  sadly  distract  us,  if 
we  listen  to  them  in  our  heart.  And  the  thought 
of  things  in  imagination  may  be  hurtful ;  for 
there  is  a  power  in  imagination  that  surpasses 
the  strength  of  fact. 

Here  comes  in  our  need  of  healing  ministry 
to  meet  our  tendency  to  what  is  morbid.  Those 
who  fear  blasphemy  are  not  those  who  blas- 
pheme ;  they  suffer  a  malaise  which  is  more  akin 
to  nightmare  than  to  sin,  and  whose  immediate 
cause  should  be  sought  in  a  physical  rather  than 
a  spiritual  fault.  If  we  sin  against  the  Spirit  of 
God,  it  shall  be  in  acts  and  not  words,  and  in 
affection  rather  than  thought.  There  is  a  great 
fatigue  after  spiritual  strain,  because  our  soul  is 
tenanted  within  a  body  which  is  feeble  at  the 
best.  There  is  an  exhaustion  after  ecstasy,  whose 
collapse  is  physical,  and  must  not  be  confounded 


2o6  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

with  the  inertia  of  unfaithfulness  or  with  lapse 
into  sin.  There  is  a  depression  after  inspiration, 
which  aptly  simulates  ungodly  despair,  and  is 
amongst  the  deepest  pains  the  heart  can  know. 
We  climb  no  height  of  emotional  experience,  but 
there  is  a  dark  valley  beneath  it ;  and  our  path 
lies  down  there.  On  the  height,  we  must  see 
the  valley  before  we  enter  it,  and  take  with  us 
the  understanding  there  gained,  to  explain  and 
alleviate  its  gloom,  'i 

This  does  not  concern  everyone  ;  but  it 
closely  touches  some.  They  need  to  be  told 
this,  and  to  remember  and  quietly  allow  for  it. 
There  is  enough  pain  for  all  of  us,  without  self- 
torture.  There  is  a  place  for  healing  ministry 
in  many  a  Christian  experience ;  and  the  time  to 
seek  it  may  often  come,  while  we  live  the  life  of 
heaven,  as  Jesus  did,  in  an  earthborn  body,  and 
in  the  midst  of  evil  thinQs,  We  do  not  live  in 
a  day  of  visible  contest  with  Satan ;  and  we 
neither  expect,  nor  do  we  need,  the  evident 
ministry  of  holy  angels  to  attend  us.  But  we 
must  take  what  God  has  given  us  for  the  health 
of  our  mind  as  well  as  of  our  soul.  All  life  and 
work  and  religion  may  be  very  difficult  to  the 
man  who  needs  a  tonic  or  a  holiday.  These  are 
the  ministry  many  a  one  requires. 


HORROR  AND  HEALING  207 

Again,  we  may  believe  that  the  chief  ministry 
the  angels  brought  to  Jesus  was  just  their  radiant 
company.  He  was  not  left  alone  when  the  Devil 
left  Him.  The  sorest  thing  in  His  Temptation 
had  been  its  solitariness,  and  His  choicest  healing 
was  the  end  of  that.  And,  if  only  for  health's 
sake,  we  ought  to  avoid  solitary  experiences, 
when  God  does  not  lay  these  upon  us.  There  is 
a  curative  value  in  fellowship  which  none  can 
afford  to  despise ;  and  few,  if  any,  can  neglect  it 
without  injury. 

Besides  the  ministries  of  medicine,  recreation, 
and  companionship,  there  is  a  wonderful  healing 
in  healthy  activity.  This  meets  those  phases  of 
experience  in  which  the  inward  bulks  too  large. 
It  is  not  wholesome  when  we  find  ourselves,  as 
it  were,  in  a  wilderness  of  self;  when  the  world 
retires  to  a  distance  and  becomes  remote  and 
small,  and  fails  to  attract  and  attach  our  interest. 
When  our  thought  and  oitr  feelings  loom  into 
a  morbid  prominence,  then  we  require  healing  ; 
and  our  cure  shall  be  found  in  what  takes  us 
out  of  ourself.  The  world  does  not  revolve 
round  us ;  when  it  seems  to,  that  is  because  we 
are  giddy  and  ready  to  sink.  It  is  we  who  are 
reeling,  not  the  world.  Then  we  must  take 
hold  of  the  things  about  us  with  our  mind,  and 


208  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

with  the  grasp  of  a  busy  hand  ;  for  the  healing 
ministry  of  work  is  one  great  help  to  steadiness, 
whether  of  mind  or  heart  or  soul. 

Let  us  realise  and  frankly  recognise  that  we 
are  called  to  live  a  life  of  exertion  in  spite  of  our 
weakness,  and  of  temptation  and  conquest  in 
spite  of  our  insufficiency.  Let  us  know  that  this 
is  in  the  care  of  God  and  of  our  own  intelligence, 
under  Him.  And  let  us  use  all  lawful  means  to 
healthful  ends  ;  for  these  are  His  gifts,  in  which 
He  ministers  assistance  to  our  need. 

When  we  see  Jesus  transfigured  In  the 
moment  of  His  deliverance  from  the  Tempter, 
let  us  not  fail  to  realise  the  great  weakness  which 
He  suffered  even  while  He  was  glorified.  The 
bright  flame  of  His  Divinity  shone  in  a  lamp  of 
human  clay,  whose  fuel  was  now  burning  low. 
As  He  fainted  and  fell  He  was  caught  and  sus- 
tained. Not  at  the  feet  of  Satan  did  He  fall,  but 
into  the  embrace  of  the  angels  of  God.  He  was 
cherished  in  the  bosom  of  Heaven  come  down 
to  earth. 

This  is  a  beautiful  fact  as  it  concerns  our 
Saviour ;  also  it  is  a  picture  and  example  of 
God's  care  of  all  His  children  in  the  hour  of 
their  greatest  trial  and  overwhelming  weakness. 


HORROR  AND  HEALING  209 

Whether  in  active  Hfe  or  in  the  article  of  death, 
the  ministry  of  Heaven  is  near  and  ready  for 
those  who  turn  to  God.  The  call  of  our  necessity 
shall  be  answered  from  above.  When  we  are 
about  to  faint,  we  shall  feel  the  sustaining  hold 
of  our  Father.  When  we  seem  about  to  fall 
helpless  at  the  feet  of  our  oppressor,  we  shall  find 
ourselves  in  the  bosom  of  angelic  ministration. 
It  was  thus  with  Jesus  ;  and  thus  it  shall  be  with 
His  brethren,  when,  like  Him,  they  call  Heaven 
to  their  aid. 


14 


CHAPTER   XIII. 
BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF  GOD! 


John  seeth  Jesus  coming  unto  him^  aiid  saith,  Behold 
the  Lamb  oj  Gody  which  bcareth  the  sin  oj  the  "world. — 
John  i.  29. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 
"BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF  GOD!" 

IN  leaving  the  study  of  the  Temptation  of 
Jesus,  we  may  see  Him  as  He  came  out  of 
the  Wilderness,  straight  from  His  conflict  and 
victory  and  from  the  ministry  of  angels.  He 
went  back  to  Jordan,  where  John  was  still  baptiz- 
ing ;  and  we  must  stand  beside  the  Baptist,  and 
wait  for  His  coming,  after  these  Forty  days  and 
nights. 

Six  weeks  ago,  Jesus  had  come  there  to  be 
baptized ;  and  John  had  looked  upon  the  chaste, 
fresh  beauty  of  His  youthful  manhood,  and 
marked  the  calmness  of  His  purity  and  strength. 
John  had  dealt  readily  and  sternly  with  all 
other  candidates  ;  but  before  this  One  he  hesi- 
tated. In  Jesus'  presence  his  message  seemed 
to  fail  him,  and  his  rite  to  become  meaningless. 
But  Jesus  accepted  the  Baptism,  and,  so  doing, 
identified  Himself  with  the  repentance  of  His 
brethren,  and  expressed  His  desire  and  expecta- 

213 


214  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

tion  towards  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  John 
had  heralded. 

Then  He  had  gone  away  into  the  Wilderness, 
with  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  on  His  head,  that 
had  been  humbly  bowed  in  acceptance  of  the 
Baptist's  rite.  And  every  day  for  forty  days 
John  had  scanned  the  crowds  about  him,  and 
whispered  in  his  heart :  "  There  standeth  one 
among  you,  whom  ye  know  not,  whose  shoe's 
latchet  I  am  not  worthy  to  unloose."  ^  This 
became  his  answer  to  the  deputation  of  Priests 
and  Levites  who  came  from  Jerusalem  to  ask  the 
Baptist,  "  Who  art  thou  ? "  and  it  shows  how 
eagerly  he  looked  for  the  return  of  Jesus.  The 
day  after  that  answer,  Jesus  came.  And  as 
John  looked  on  Him — how  eagerly  ! — there  broke 
from  his  lips  that  strange  impromptu  cry :  Behold 
the  Lamb  of  God,  which  is  bearing  the  sin  of  the 
world}  Our  versions  give  a  theological  inter- 
pretation :  "which  taketh  away  the  sin."  This 
is  misplaced  and  misleading ;  it  blinds  our  view 
of  what  John  saw.  His  speech  may  point  forward 
to  the  Cross ;  but,  first  and  chiefly,  it  points  back 
to  the  Wilderness. 

What  John  sees  is  the  marks  of  the  long 
Temptation   time,  written   deep  and  plain   upon 

*  John  i.  26,  27.  ^  John  i.  29,  niarg. 


"  BEHOLD  THE  LAMB  OF  GOD  ! "    215 

the  face  of  Jesus.  How  changed  it  is!  How 
strangely  altered  is  that  fresh  beauty  of  six  weeks 
ago  !  Then,  He  was  the  pure  picture  of  unsullied 
youth,  crowned  with  the  strength  of  manhood. 
His  calm  eye  was  full  of  the  repose  of  untried 
readiness.  Now,  He  is  marred  yet  dignified  by 
long  pain  and  conflict.  That  ennobled  beauty  has 
been  bought  by  suffering.  That  strength  has  the 
aspect  of  hard-won  victory.  And  as  John  looks 
in  mingled  wonder,  love,  and  awe,  the  explanation 
bursts  upon  him  as  a  revelation.  He  sees  the 
figure  of  a  spotless  victim  pierced  by  the  sacri- 
ficial knife.  So  he  speaks  this  cry  of  anguished 
joy  :  The  Lamb  of  God  !  The  Lamb  of  God  ! 
Already,  He  bears  upon  His  blameless  heart  the 
world's  sin.  Already,  the  pain  of  suffering  with 
men  and  for  them  tears  His  life,  and  the  iron  of 
sore  sacrifice  has  pierced  His  soul.  He  is  on 
God's  altar,  and  He  bleeds. 

This  is  how  John  saw  the  Saviour  when  He 
came  from  the  conflict  of  the  Wilderness.  So 
let  us  see  Him,  if  we  would  understand  the 
Temptation  of  Jesus. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX.  I. 

Note  from  Page  31. 
THE  NUMBER  FORTY. 

THE  associations  of  the  numh^r  forty  in  this 
connection  are  interesting  and  significant. 
Moses  is  represented  as  having  thrice  fasted  for 
this  period  :  when  he  received  the  Law  in  the 
Mount  (Ex.  xxiv.  18),  and  twice  afterwards.  The 
three  occasions  are  gathered  together  in  Deut. 
ix.  9,  18,  25.  Elijah  went  fasting  to  Horeb 
diUYmg  forty  days  (i  Kings  xix.  8). 

The  symmetry  of  the  use  of  the  number  yi?r/j)/ 
in  this  relation,  taken  along  with  its  evidently 
approximate  use  in  other  connections,  cannot  fail 
to  suggest  that  a  symbolical  meaning  is  attached 
to  it.  It  certainly  here  means  a  fast  prolonged 
to  the  utmost  known  in  human  experience,  and 
beyond  the  utmost  limit  of  endurance  possible  to 
human  nature  in  the  normal  state  and  level  of  its 
life. 


220  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

APPENDIX.   II. 

Note  from  Page  6o. 
Et  vios  el  Tov  Oeov. 

Both  vlo<s  tov  Oeov  and  6  vto?  tov  Oeov  are  found 
in  the  Gospels.  We  note  the  absence  of  the 
article  here  ;  vto?  tov  9eov  is  the  complement,  and 
the  subject  av  is  not  expressed.  It  has  been 
noticed^  that,  where  the  article  occurs,  the  subject 
is  found  expressed  (crv  or  ovto^),  and  it  has  been 
held  that  vto?  tov  Oeov  is  exactly  equivalent  in 
meaning  to  6  vlos  tov  Oeov.  But  the  occurrence 
of  the  article  at  one  time,  and  its  suppression  at 
another,  cannot  be  fully  accounted  for  in  this 
merely  grammatical  way.  The  fact  seems  to 
be,  that  the  expression  of  the  subject  coincides 
with  the  ascription  or  the  mention  of  a  definite 
Messianic  title  ;  that  the  predicate  6  vto?  tov  Oeov 
has  more  content  than  vto?  tov  Oeov,  which  is  a 
descriptive  identification  or  classification  of  Jesus, 
devoid  of  Messianic  reference. 

"  When  the  title  is  found  with  the  article  after 
a  verb  of  existence,  the  identity  of  the  subject  with 
a  person,  to  whom  it  peculiarly  belonged,  is  the 

*  Middleton,  O/i  the  Greek  Article^  2nd  ed.  p.  178. 


APPENDIX,  II  221 

predicate,  without  particular  reference  to  the 
meaning  of  the  words  themselves ;  and  when  it 
is  anarthrous,  the  attributes  signified  by  the  words 
vLo<s  Tov  deov  are  the  predicate,  without  regard  to 
their  special  association  with  the  person  of  the 
Messiah."^ 

"  The  Tempter's  challenge  to  our  Lord  is  not, 
If  Thou  be  the  Messiah  ;  but  one  of  more  subtle 
and  keener  provocation,  If  Thou  be  God's  Son, 
and  possessed  of  extraordinary  powers  in  virtue 
of  that  divine  generation."  ^ 

"  Both  Matthew  and  Luke  have  vto?  tov  Oeov, 
without  the  article,  the  reference  being  to  the 
relationship  to  God  rather  than  to  the  office  of 
Messiah."^ 

Throughout  the  Gospels  the  definite  or  titular 
form,  TAe  Son  of  God,  is  never  found  as  given  to 
Jesus,  except  by  His  disciples  as  an  expression  of 
true  faith.  It  is  used  by  the  Baptist  (John  i.  34), 
by  Nathanael  (John  i.  50),  by  Martha  (John  xi. 
27),  by  the  Evangelist  himself  (John  xx.  31). 
The  enemies  of  Jesus  also  use  the  definite  title 
when  they  ask  Him  if  He  claims  to  be  The  Son 

^  T.  S.  Green,  Grammar  of  the  New  Testament^  Ed.  1842, 
p.  172. 

^  T.  S.  Green,  ibid.  p.  174. 

^  Alfred  Plummer,  D.D.,  Critical  and  Exegetical  Commentary 
on  tlie  Gospel  atcording  to  St.  Luke;  in  loc. 


222  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

0/  God  (Maiit.  xxvi.  63  ;  Luke  xxii.  yo),  the  Son 
of  the  Blessed  (Mark  xiv.  6 1 ).  The  only  apparent 
exception  to  the  absence  of  the  title,  except  when 
ascribed  to  Jesus  by  disciples,  is  found  in  Mark 
iii.  II  and  Luke  iv.  41,  where  the  witness  of  the 
spirit-possessed  is  quoted  generally  ;  but  when  we 
hear  one  possessed  of  a  devil  testifying,  it  is  the 
indefinite  form  that  occurs  (Mark  v.  7  ;  Luke 
viii.  28).  The  reader  of  the  texlus  receptus  will 
find  the  form,  The  Son  of  God,  given  once,  as  used 
by  Satan,  in  S.  Luke's  account  of  the  Temptation  ; 
but  the  article  is  not  found  in  the  best  MSS. 

The  same  indefinite  God's  Son,  or  a  Son  of 
God,  is  found  in  the  jibe  of  the  passers-by  at 
Calvary  (Matt,  xxvii.  40),  also  in  the  taunt  of 
the  rulers  (Matt,  xxvii.  43),  and  the  testimony  of 
the  Roman  centurion  on  duty  at  the  Crucifixion 
(Mark  xv.  39).  This  last  case  is  the  only  one  in 
which  our  Revisers  have  indicated  the  difference 
between  the  two  forms.  It  is  done  in  the  margin, 
apparently  under  pressure  of  the  fact  that  the 
Roman  officer  was,  in  all  probability,  an  unin- 
structed  heathen. 

It  is  important  to  note  the  absence  of  even 
the  mention  of  the  peculiar  Sonship  of  Jesus  by 
any  save  disciples,  except  when  His  enemies 
designed  to  provoke  Him  to  what  they  counted 


APPENDIX,  II  223 

blasphemy.  The  theological  conception  is  seen 
to  be  strange  to  the  contemporaries  of  our  Lord ; 
and  the  faith  of  the  disciples  is  thrown  out  in  a 
more  bold  relief  when  we  realise  this. 

The  Hebrews  believed  in  the  existence  of  an 
order  of  beings  superior  in  grade  to  men,  but 
subordinate  to  God.  They  occasionally  mixed  in 
or  interfered  with  the  affairs  of  men.  We  find 
them  in  Gen.  vi.  2,  where  they  are  represented  as 
intermarrying  with  "the  daughters  of  men."  In 
Job  i.  6  and  ii.  i  they  are  seen  presenting  them- 
selves before  the  Lord  :  "  And  Satan  came  also 
among  them,  to  present  himself  before  the  Lord." 
Having  this  element  of  popular  belief  in  mind,  we 
are  not  required  to  suppose  that  Satan,  in  the 
Temptation,  formally  recognised  the  Divinity  of 
Jesus ;  rather,  he  addresses  Him  as  one  of  his 
own  order  of  supra-human  or  angelic  beings. 

We  do  not  need  the  witness  of  Satan.  The 
witness  of  Jesus  to  His  own  rank  and  title,  though 
rare,  is  clear  (Matt.  xvi.  17;  Mark  xiv.  61,  62; 
John  ix.  35,  T,j).  Further,  in  speaking  of  Himself 
in  relation  to  the  Father,  our  Lord  habitually 
styled  Himself  The  Son.  This  is  the  faith  which 
is  found  without  ambiguity  in  the  Epistles,  and 
which  has  passed  into  the  assured  belief  of  the 
Church. 


224  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

APPENDIX,    III. 

Note  from  Page  130. 

TO  TTTepvyiov  Tov  lepov. — Matt.   iv.    5. 

Our  A.V.  has  it,  that  Satan  set  Jesus  on  a 
pinnacle  of  the  Temple.  The  familiar  "pinnacle" 
has  come  out  of  the  translators'  minds  and  from 
amongst  their  preconceptions,  for  TTTepvyiov  does 
not  mean  pinnacle,  and  the  Temple  was  not  a 
pinnacled  building.  The  R.V.  does  not  greatly 
improve  matters  by  substituting  l/ie  for  a  pinnacle. 
It,  however,  gives  the  key  to  a  right  interpretation 
by  restoring  the  definite  article  which  King  James' 
translators  had  ignored,  and  by  the  marginal  note 
that  TTTepvyiov  means  wing.  In  seeking  to  realise 
the  precise  scene  of  this  Temptation,  we  have  to 
inquire  what  is  meant  by  the  wing,  or  rather 
winglet,  of  the  Temple.  Holtzmann  says  it  may 
be  either  (i)  the  extremity  of  a  gable's  ledge,  or 
(2)  the  actual  summit  of  the  Royal  Hall.  Some 
take  the  word  to  apply  to  an  out-building,  and 
support  this  by  the  use  of  tov  lepov  instead  of 
TOV  z/aov.  And  Solomon's  porch  and  the  crroa 
Paa-iXiK-q  are  pointed  to  as  answering  the  require- 
ments of  our  passage,  especially  since  each  of 
them  surmounts  a  precipice.     But  our  view  of  the 


APPENDIX,  III  225 

ulterior  purpose  of  this  Temptation  prevents  our 
admitting  a  position  from  which  one  would  leap 
into  obscurity.  Surely  the  same  Trrepvyiov  is 
referred  to,  when  Hegesippus  tells  us  of  S.  James' 
martyrdom  that  he  was  pushed  over  from  to 
TTTepvyiov  Tov  vaov,  the  main  building  being 
certainly  referred  to  in  this  case.  From  the  word 
TTTepvyiov  itself  we  may  learn  at  once,  that  it  means 
a  projection,  and  one  in  a  lateral  direction.  The 
term  has  probably  come  from  comparing,  to  the 
wings  of  a  bird,  the  sloping  and  projecting  ledge 
at  the  top  of  a  gable,  or  the  similar  ledge  often 
surmounting  a  door  or  a  window. 

While  our  A.V.'s  disregard  of  the  article  is 
remarkable,  our  reassertion  of  it  need  not  lead  us 
to  require  a  uniquely  conspicuous  place  to  justify 
its  use.  It  more  probably  points  to  a  general 
architectural  feature  of  the  Temple  buildings. 
This  is  consistent  with  the  fact  that  Hesychius 
gives  TTTepvyiov  as  equivalent  to  aKpcoTtjpiov,  which 
may  mean  simply  any  projection.  So  we  con- 
ceive the  place  indicated  to  be  a  projecting  ledge 
running  along  a  wall-top.  And  we  take  the  use  of 
the  article  to  be  like  our  use  of  it  when  we  speak 
of  l/^e  giittej''  of  any  building  without  claiming  dis- 
tinction for  it,  or  for  ourselves  any  familiar  ac- 
quaintance with  architectural  or  economic  details. 
15 


226  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

APPENDIX,   IV. 

Note  from  Page  35. 

THE  RELATION  OF  HUMAN  NATURE  TO 
SIN:  ESPECIALLY  IN  JESUS. 

We  learn  from  the  Gospels  that  the  prepara- 
tion of  Jesus  for  His  successful  conflict  with 
evil  began  before  His  birth ;  and,  while  we 
reverently  believe  the  fact  of  His  extraordinary 
generation,  we  may  acknowledge  that  we  have  no 
understanding  of  it.  The  origin  of  all  human  life 
is  wrapped  in  mystery ;  it  may  well  be  an  im- 
penetrable veil  that  surrounds  the  Divine-human 
birth  of  Jesus. 

There  are,  however,  two  beliefs  into  either  of 
which  we  might  readily  fall,  and  both  of  which  we 
must  avoid.  First,  we  may  not  believe  that  Jesus 
ofot  His  human  nature  from  another  than  a  human 
source ;  that  God,  contrary  to  appearance,  gave 
Him  a  new  and  specially-created  nature  of  the 
sort  called  human.  In  that  case,  the  link  that 
binds  Him  to  us  were  not  one  of  relationship,  but 
merely  the  shadowy  tie  of  resemblance  ;  and  we 
could  find  little  meaning  in  His  outwardly  ordinary 
birth  and  life,  if  these  covered  a  nature  similar  to 


APPENDIX,  IV  227 

ours  in  kind  but  alien  in  source.  Second,  we  may 
not  believe  that,  in  the  transmission  of  the  human 
nature  of  Jesus,  a  miracle  prevented  the  trans- 
mission of  an  evil  taint  which  is  present  in  the 
nature  of  other  men.  That  would  make  Jesus' 
victory  over  sin  the  result  of  a  mechanical  miracle 
of  moral  filtration  ;  and,  giving  God  the  Holy 
Spirit  that  victory  prior  to  His  birth,  would  leave 
us  one  who  could  by  no  means  be  tempted  like  as 
we  are,  if  we  have  qualities  inherent  in  and  essen- 
tial to  our  nature,  which  were  absent  in  Him. 

Both  of  these  views  are  easily  understood,  and 
afford  a  ready  solution  of  the  difficulties  which  we 
feel  regarding  the  Temptation  of  our  Lord ;  but 
they  alike  utterly  spoil,  for  us,  the  victorious  sin- 
lessness  of  our  Brother,  the  man  Christ  Jesus. 
They  rob  of  all  meaning  and  help  the  assurance 
that  He  can  "  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our 
infirmities ;  and  was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as 
we  are,  yet  without  sin."  ^ 

In  the  light  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus,  along 
with  His  true  humanness,  we  may  see  that  our 
original  sinfulness  lies,  not  in  a  taint  which  is 
essential  to  our  nature,  but  in  alienation  from 
God,  which  makes  communion  with  Him  im- 
possible.    Man  is   born   into  estrangement  from 

1  Heb.  iv.  15. 


228  THE  TEMPTATION  OF  JESUS 

God,  and  is  therefore  obnoxious  to  all  evil,  while 
cut  off  from  good.  From  this  point  of  view  we 
see,  how  the  union  of  the  Divine  with  human 
nature  in  our  Lord's  person  did  actually  in  His 
person  abolish  that  source  of  sin  which  makes  us 
all  sinners  by  birth.  While  our  estrangement 
cuts  us  off  from  God  and  His  holy  life,  in  Jesus 
we  find  human  nature  filled  to  the  full  with  the 
Divine  Spirit ;  and  thus  Jesus  met  Temptation, 
not  only  with  His  pure  heavenly  strength,  but 
with  every  essential  feature  of  that  human  nature 
which  He  had  received  in  His  human  birth. 

The  primary  and  chief  super-ordinary  element 
in  the  human  nature  of  Jesus  was  one  of  relation 
with  God.  In  this  regard  He  was  perfect,  and 
from  this  flowed  His  other  perfections.  We  shall 
best  understand  the  Temptation  of  Jesus  if  we 
realise  that,  while  there  was  much  about  His 
manhood  that  was  extraordinary  to  men,  there  was 
nothing  that  was  unnatural  to  human  nature.  He 
was  more  human  than  His  brethren  of  mankind, 
because  He  was  perfect,  which  they  are  not.  The 
Temptations  of  Jesus  were  the  trials  of  an  ideal, 
because  a  perfect,  man.  On  this  account  they  were 
Temptations  such  as  are  common  to  humanity. 

Man  spiritual  cannot  be  considered  apart 
from    man    physical.     Our    moral    character  and 


APPENDIX,  IV  229 

life  are  largely  influenced  by  their  organ,  the 
body.  Sin  cannot  be  rightly  dealt  with  as  a- 
theological  abstraction,  but  must  be  recognised, 
as  it  is  in  the  Bible,  as  a  practical  fact.  The 
modern  view  of  heredity  supplies  a  sufficient  and 
very  impressive  doctrine  of  original  sin,  which  is 
almost  Augustinian  in  intensity,  if  rightly  appre- 
hended. We  inherit  in  our  physical  organism 
many  traces  of  evil  practice  and  wrong  habit  in 
our  ancestry.  These,  though  not  essential  to 
human  nature,  are  actual  in  it,  and  these  occasion 
a  predisposition  to  sin.  Because  in  none  is  the 
physical  organ  of  life  perfect,  original  sin  is  a 
fact  in  all  men,  though  a  quantity  varying  in 
each. 

The  relations  of  body  and  soul,  which  have 
only  in  recent  times  begun  to  be  investigated, 
have  a  great  importance  for  our  understanding 
of  the  nature  of  sin.  The  fact  that  man,  who  is 
a  moral  and  spiritual  being,  lives  his  life  in  a 
physical  body,  implies  sin,  necessitates  it,  unless 
the  physical  organ  of  his  life  is  perfectly  controlled 
by  spiritual  impulse,  purpose,  and  direction.  The 
imperfectness  of  this  control  is  the  fruitful  source 
of  sin  ;  the  perfecting  of  it  is  the  work  of  God 
in  Christ  and  by  His  Spirit  The  perfection  of 
it  is  seen  in  Jesus  by  virtue  of  His  measureless 


230  THE  TEMPrATION  OF  JESUS 

endowment  with  that  Spirit.  Hence  His  sinless- 
ness  while  living  a  true  human  life  in  the  body, 
the  organ  of  human  life. 

The  sinlessness  of  Jesus  is  placed  above 
argument,  by  the  perfect  picture  which  in  the 
Gospels  is  mirrored  by  artless  love.  "  Life, 
like  a  dome  of  many-coloured  glass,  stains  the 
white  radiance  of  Eternity."  Having,  then,  this 
one  window  of  unbroken  rays,  let  us  forbear  to 
peer  with  the  prism  of  our  angular  intelligence, 
and  open  wide  our  hearts  to  be  bathed  in  the 
flood  of  its  purifying  light. 


Printed  by  MoKRisoN  &  GiBB  Limited,  Edinhurgh 


on  Thfoloq.cal  Stm.nary-Spff'  Libjary 


1    1012  01118  7301 


DATE  DUE 

HIGHSMITH  #45115 


